I 


LIBRARY 

UNIVEi 
CALIi 


i       SAN  DIEGO        .- 


BY  E.  ALEXANDER  POWELL 

WHERE  THE  STRANGE  TRAILS  GO  DOWN 

THE  NEW  FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

THE  ARMT  BEHIND  THE  AliMT 

THE  LAST  FRONTIER 

GENTLEMEN  ROVERS 

THE  END  OF  THE  TRAIL, 

FIGHTING  IN  FLANDERS 

THE  ROAD  TO  GLORT 

VIVE  LA  FRANCE ! 

ITALY  AT  WAR 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


WHERE  THE  STRANGE  TRAILS 
GO  DOWN 


A  real  wild  man  of  Borneo 
A  Dyak  head-hunter  using  the  sumpitan,  or  blow-gun,  in  the  jungle  of  Central  Borneo 


WHERE 

THE  STRANGE  TRAILS 
GO    DOWN 

SULU,  BORNEO,   CELEBES,   BALI,  JAVA, 

SUMATRA,      STRAITS      SETTLEMENTS, 

MALAY     STATES,     SIAM,     CAMBODIA, 

ANNAM,   COCHIN-CHINA 


BY 

E.  ALEXANDER  POWELL 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  MAP 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1921 


COPYRIGHT,  1921,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

Published  October,  1921 


PRINTED  AT 

THE   SCRIBNER  PRESS 

NEW  YORK,  U.  S.  A. 


To 

THE  WINSOME  WIDOW 
MARGARET  CAMPBELL  McCUTCHEN 
WHO,  DESPITE  COUNTLESS  DISCOMFORTS, 

ALWAYS  KEPT  SMILING 


FOREWORD 

IT  is  a  curious  thing,  when  you  stop  to  think  about 
it,  that,  though  of  late  the  public  has  been  deluged 
with  books  on  the  South  Seas,  though  the  shelves  of 
the  public  libraries  sag  beneath  the  volumes  devoted 
to  China,  Japan,  Korea,  next  to  nothing  has  been  writ- 
ten, save  by  a  handful  of  scientifically-minded  explor- 
ers, about  those  far-flung,  gorgeous  lands,  stretching 
from  the  southern  marches  of  China  to  the  edges  of 
Polynesia,  which  the  ethnologists  call  Malaysia.  Siam, 
Cambodia,  Annam,  Cochin-China,  the  Malay  States, 
the  Straits  Settlements,  Sumatra,  Java,  Bali,  Celebes, 
Borneo,  Sulu  .  .  .  their  very  names  are  synonymous 
with  romance;  the  sound  of  them  makes  restless  the 
feet  of  all  who  love  adventure.  Sultans  and  rajahs 
.  .  .  pirates  and  head-hunters  .  .  .  sun-bronzed  pio- 
neers and  white-helmeted  legionnaires  .  .  .  blow-guns 
with  poisoned  darts  and  curly-bladed  krises  .  .  .  ele- 
phants with  gilded  howdahs  .  .  .  tigers,  crocodiles, 
orang-utans  .  .  .  pagodas  and  palaces  .  .  .  shaven- 
headed  priests  in  yellow  robes  .  .  .  flaming  fire-trees 
.  .  .  the  fragrance  of  frangipani  .  .  .  green  jungle 
and  steaming  tropic  rivers  .  .  .  white  moonlight  on 
the  long  white  beaches  .  .  .  the  throb  of  war-drums 
and  the  tinkle  of  wind-blown  temple-bells.  .  .  . 

But  it  is  not  for  all  of  us  to  go  down  the  strange 

vii 


viii  FOREWORD 

trails  which  lead  to  these  magic  places.  The  world's 
work  must  be  done.  So,  for  those  who  are  condemned 
by  circumstance  to  the  prosaic  existence  of  the  office, 
the  factory,  and  the  home,  I  have  written  this  book. 
I  would  have  them  feel  the  hot  breath  of  the  South. 
I  would  convey  to  them  something  of  the  spell  of  the 
tropics,  the  mystery  of  the  jungle,  the  lure  of  the 
little,  palm-fringed  islands  which  rise  from  peacock- 
colored  seas.  I  would  introduce  to  them  those  pictur- 
esque and  hardy  figures — planters,  constabulary  of- 
ficers, consuls,  missionaries,  colonial  administrators — 
who  are  carrying  civilization  into  these  dark  and  dis- 
tant corners  of  the  earth.  I  would  have  them  know 
the  fascination  of  leaning  through  those  "magic  case- 
ments, opening  on  the  foam  of  perilous  seas,  in  faery 
lands  forlorn." 

I  had  planned,  therefore,  that  this  should  be  a  light- 
hearted,  care-free,  casual  narrative.  And  so,  in  parts, 
it  is.  But  more  serious  things  have  crept,  almost  im- 
perceptibly, into  its  pages.  The  achievements  of  the 
Dutch  empire-builders  in  the  Insulinde,  the  conditions 
which  prevail  under  the  rule  of  the  chartered  company 
in  Borneo,  the  opening-up  of  Indo-China  and  the  Malay 
Peninsula,  the  regeneration  of  Siam,  the  epic  strug- 
gle between  civilization  and  savagery  which  is  in 
progress  in  all  these  lands — these  are  phases  of  Malay- 
sian life  which,  if  this  book  is  to  have  any  serious 
value,  I  cannot  ignore.  That  is  why  it  is  a  melange 
of  the  frivolous  and  the  serious,  the  picturesque  and 
the  prosaic,  the  superficial  and  the  significant.  If, 


FOREWORD  ix 

when  you  lay  it  down,  you  have  gained  a  better  under- 
standing of  the  dangers  and  difficulties  which  beset  the 
colonizing  white  man  in  the  lands  of  the  Malay,  if  you 
realize  that  life  in  the  eastern  tropics  consists  of  some- 
thing more  than  sapphire  seas  and  bamboo  huts  be- 
neath the  slanting  palm  trees  and  native  maidens  with 
hibiscus  blossoms  in  their  dusky  hair,  if,  in  short,  you 
have  been  instructed  as  well  as  entertained,  then  I  shall 
feel  that  I  have  been  justified  in  writing  this  book. 

E.  ALEXANDER  POWELL. 
York  Harbor,  Maine, 

October  first,  1921. 


AN  ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

FOR  the  courtesies  they  showed  me,  and  the  assist- 
ance they  afforded  me  during  the  long  journey  which 
is  chronicled  in  this  book,  I  am  deeply  indebted  to 
many  persons  in  many  lands.  I  welcome  this  oppor- 
tunity of  expressing  my  gratitude  to  the  Hon.  Francis 
Burton  Harrison,  former  Governor-General  of  the 
Philippine  Islands,  and  to  the  Hon.  Manuel  Quezon, 
President  of  the  Philippine  Senate,  for  placing  at  my 
disposal  the  coastguard  cutter  Negros,  on  which  I 
cruised  upward  of  six  thousand  miles,  as  well  as  for 
countless  other  courtesies.  Brigadier-General  Ralph  W. 
Jones,  Warren  H.  Latimer,  Esq.,  and  Major  Edwin 
C.  Bopp  shamefully  neglected  their  personal  affairs 
in  order  to  make  my  journey  comfortable  and  inter- 
esting. Dr.  Edward  C.  Ernst,  of  the  United  States 
Quarantine  Service  at  Manila,  who  served  as  volun- 
teer surgeon  of  the  expedition;  John  L.  Hawkinson, 
Esq.,  the  man  behind  the  camera;  James  Rockwell, 
Esq.,  and  Captain  A.  B.  Galvez,  commander  of  the 
Negros,  by  their  unfailing  tactfulness  and  good 
nature,  did  much  to  add  to  the  success  of  the  enter- 
prise. I  am  likewise  under  the  deepest  obligations  to 
Colonel  Ole  Waloe,  commanding  the  Philippine 


xii  AN  ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Constabulary  in  Zamboanga;  to  the  Hon.  P.  W. 
Rogers,  Governor  of  Jolo ;  to  Captain  R.  C.  d'Oyley- 
John,  formerly  Chief  Police  Officer  of  Sandakan, 
British  North  Borneo;  to  M.  de  Haan,  Resident 
at  Samarinda,  Dutch  Borneo;  and  to  his  colleagues 
at  Makassar,  Singaradja,  Kloeng-Kloeng,  Surabaya, 
Djokjakarta,  and  Surakarta;  to  the  Hon.  John  F. 
Jewell,  American  Consul-General  at  Batavia;  to  the 
Hon.  Edwin  N.  Gunsaulus,  American  Consul-General 
at  Singapore;  to  J.  D.  C.  Rodgers,  Esq.,  American 
Charge  d'Affaires  at  Bangkok;  to  his  late  Royal  High- 
ness the  Crown  Prince  of  Siam ;  to  his  Serene  Highness 
Prince  Traidos  Prabandh,  Siamese  Under  Secretary 
of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs;  to  his  Serene  Highness 
Colonel  Prince  Amoradhat,  Chief  of  Intelligence  of  the 
Siamese  Army,  who  constituted  himself  my  guide  and 
cicerone  during  our  stay  in  his  country;  to  the  French 
Resident-Superior  at  Pnom-Penh;  and  to  the  other 
French  officials  who  aided  me  during  my  travels  in  Indo- 
China.  His  Excellency  J.  J.  Jusserand,  French  Am- 
bassador at  Washington  and  his  Excellency  Phya 
Prabha  Karavongse,  Siamese  Minister  at  Washington, 
provided  me  with  letters  which  obtained  for  me  many 
facilities  in  French  Indo-China  and  in  Siam.  Nor  am 
I  unappreciative  of  the  many  kindnesses  shown  me  by 
James  R.  Bray,  Esq.,  of  New  York  City;  by  Austin 
Day  Brixey,  Esq.,  of  Greenwich,  Conn.;  and  by  Dr. 
Eldon  R.  James,  General  Adviser  to  the  Siamese  Gov- 
ernment. I  also  wish  to  acknowledge  my  indebted- 


AN  ACKNOWLEDGMENT  xiii 

ness  to  A.  Cabaton,  Esq.,  from  whose  extremely  valu- 
able study  of  Netherlands  India  I  have  drawn  freely  in 
describing  the  Dutch  system  of  administration  in  the 
Insulinde.  I  have  also  obtained  much  valuable  data 
from  "Java  and  Her  Neighbors"  by  A.  C.  Walcott, 
Esq.,  and  from  "The  Kingdom  of  the  Yellow  Robe" 
by  Ernest  Young,  Esq. 

E.  ALEXANDER  POWELL. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     MAGIC  ISLES  AND  FAIRY  SEAS i 

II.    OUTPOSTS  OF  EMPIRE 25 

III.  "WHERE  THERE  AIN'T  No  TEN  COMMAND- 

MENTS     '   .     .  50 

IV.  THE  EMERALDS  OF  WILHELMINA  ....  74 
V.    MAN-EATERS  AND  HEAD-HUNTERS  ....  99 

VI.    IN  BUGI  LAND 126 

VII.     DOWN  TO  AN  ISLAND  EDEN 143 

VIII.     THE  GARDEN  THAT  Is  JAVA 163 

IX.    PROSPECT  RULERS  AND  COMIC  OPERA  COURTS  189 

X.    THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  TO  ELE- 
PHANT LAND 208 

XI.    To  PNOM-PENH  BY  THE  JUNGLE  TRAIL  .     .  246 

XII.     EXILES  OF  THE  OUTLANDS 270 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

A  real  wild  man  of  Borneo Frontispiece 

FACING    PAGE 

Hawkinson  taking  motion-pictures  while  descending  the 

rapids  of  the  Pagsanjan  River  in  Luzon  ....  10 

Members  of  Major  Powell's  party  landing  on  the  south 

coast  of  Bali 10 

The  bull-fight  at  Parang 22 

Dusun  women 60 

Dyak  head-hunters  of  North  Borneo 60 

The  Jalan  Tiga,  Sandakan 70 

A  patron  of  a  Sandakan  opium  farm 70 

Catching  a  man-eating  crocodile  in  a  Borneo  river  .      .  112 

Major  Powell  talking  to  the  Regent  of  Koetei  on  the 

steps   at  Tenggaroeng 124 

State  procession  in  the  Kraton  of  the  Sultan  of  Djok- 
jakarta   124 

Some  strange  subjects  of  Queen  Wilhelmina    .      .      .  130 

The  volcano  of  Bromo,  Eastern  Java,  in  eruption  .      .  170 

A  Dyak  girl  at  Tenggaroeng,  Dutch   Borneo   .      .      .  200 

A  Dyak  head-hunter,  Dutch  Borneo 200 

The  captain  of  the  body-guard  of  "The  Spike  of  the 

Universe" 200 

A  clown  in  the  royal  wedding  procession  at  Djokjakarta  200 

An   elephant   hunt  in    Siam 228 


xviii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACIJTC  FAG* 

King  Sisowath  of  Cambodia 234 

Rama  VI,  King  of  Siam 234 

Colorful   ceremonies  of  Old   Siam 238 

Transportation   in   the   Siamese  jungle 248 

The  head   of  the  pageant   approaching  the  camera   in 

the  palace  at  Pnom-Penh 266 

Dancing  girls  belonging  to  the  royal  ballet  of  the  King 

of  Cambodia  .                                                     .      .  268 


MAP 

Malaysia 28 


WHERE  THE  STRANGE  TRAILS 
GO  DOWN 


WHERE  THE  STRANGE 
TRAILS  GO  DOWN 

CHAPTER  I 

MAGIC  ISLES  AND  FAIRY  SEAS 

WHEN  I  was  a  small  boy  I  spent  my  summers  at 
the  quaint  old  fishing-village  of  Mattapoisett,  on  Buz- 
zard's Bay.  Next  door  to  the  house  we  occupied 
stood  a  low-roofed,  unpretentious  dwelling,  white  as 
an  old-time  clipper  ship,  with  bright  green  blinds.  I 
can  still  catch  the  fragrance  of  the  lilacs  by  the  gate. 
The  fine  old  doorway,  brass-knockered,  arched  by  a 
spray  of  crimson  rambler,  was  flanked  on  one  hand 
by  a  great  conch-shell,  on  the  other  by  an  enormous 
specimen  of  branch-coral,  thus  subtly  intimating  to 
passers-by  that  the  owner  of  the  house  had  been  in 
"foreign  parts."  A  distinctly  nautical  atmosphere 
was  lent  to  the  broad,  deck-like  verandah  by  a  ship's 
barometer,  a  chart  of  Cape  Cod,  and  a  highly  polished 
brass  telescope  mounted  on  a  tripod  so  as  to  com- 
mand the  entire  expanse  of  the  bay.  Here  Cap'n 
Bryant,  a  retired  New  Bedford  whaling  captain,  was 
wont  to  spend  the  sunny  days  in  his  big  cane-seated 
rocking-chair,  puffing  meditatively  at  his  pipe  and  for 
my  boyish  edification  spinning  yarns  of  adventure  in 


2  STRANGE  TRAILS 

far-distant  seas  and  on  islands  with  magic  names — 
Tawi  Tawi,  Makassar  Straits,  the  Dingdings,  the 
Little  Paternosters,  the  Gulf  of  Boni,  Thursday 
Island,  Java  Head.  Of  cannibal  feasts  in  New 
Guinea,  of  head-hunters  in  Borneo,  of  strange  dances 
by  dusky  temple-girls  in  Bali,  of  up-country  expedi- 
tions with  the  White  Rajah  of  Sarawak,  of  desperate 
encounters  with  Dyak  pirates  in  the  Sulu  Sea,  he  dis- 
coursed at  length  and  in  fascinating  detail,  while  I, 
sprawled  on  the  verandah  steps,  my  knees  clasped  in 
my  hands,  listened  raptly  and,  when  the  veteran's  flow 
of  reminiscence  showed  signs  of  slackening,  clamored 
insistently  for  more. 

Then  and  there  I  determined  that  some  day  I  would 
myself  sail  those  adventurous  seas  in  a  vessel  of  my 
own,  that  I  would  poke  the  nose  of  my  craft  up  steam- 
ing tropic  rivers,  that  I  would  drop  anchor  off  towns 
whose  names  could  not  be  found  on  ordinary  maps, 
and  that  I  would  go  ashore  in  white  linen  and  pipe- 
clayed shoes  and  a  sun-hat  to  take  tiffin  with  sultans 
and  rajahs,  and  to  barter  beads  and  brass  wire  for 
curios — a  curly-bladed  Malay  kris,  carved  cocoanuts, 
a  shark's-tooth  necklace,  a  blow-gun  with  its  poisoned 
darts,  a  stuffed  bird  of  paradise,  and,  of  course,  a 
huge  conch-shell  and  an  enormous  piece  of  branch- 
coral — which  I  would  bring  home  and  display  to  ad- 
miring relatives  and  friends  as  convincing  proofs  of 
where  I  had  been. 

But  school  and  college  had  to  be  gotten  through 
with,  and  after  them  came  wars  in  various  parts  of 


MAGIC  ISLES  AND  FAIRY  SEAS          3 

the  world  and  adventurings  in  many  lands,  so  that 
thirty  years  slipped  by  before  an  opportunity  pre- 
sented itself  to  realize  the  dream  of  my  boyhood. 
But  when  at  last  I  set  sail  for  those  far-distant  seas 
it  was  on  an  enterprise  which  would  have  gladdened 
the  old  sailor's  soul — an  expedition  whose  object  it 
was  to  seek  out  the  unusual,  the  curious,  and  the  pic- 
turesque, and  to  capture  them  on  the  ten  miles  of 
celluloid  film  which  we  took  with  us,  so  that  those  who 
are  condemned  by  circumstance  to  the  humdrum  life 
of  the  farm,  the  office,  or  the  mill  might  themselves  go 
adventuring  o'nights,  from  the  safety  and  comfort  of 
red-plush  seats,  through  the  magic  of  the  motion- 
picture  screen.  When  I  set  out  on  my  long  journey 
the  old  whaling  captain  whose  tales  had  kindled  my 
youthful  imagination  had  been  sleeping  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century  in  the  Mattapoisett  graveyard,  but  when 
our  anchor  rumbled  down  off  Tawi  Tawi,  when,  steam- 
ing across  Makassar  Straits,  we  picked  up  the  Little 
Paternosters,  when  our  tiny  vessel  poked  her  bowsprit 
up  the  steaming  Koetei  into  the  heart  of  the  Borneo 
jungle,  I  knew  that,  though  invisible  to  human  eyes, 
he  was  standing  beside  me  on  the  bridge. 

Until  I  met  the  young-old  man  to  whom  those  maga- 
zines which  devote  themselves  to  the  gossip  of  the  film 
world  admiringly  refer  as  "the  Napoleon  of  the 
movies,"  it  had  never  occurred  to  me  that  adventure 
has  a  definite  market  value.  At  least  I  had  never 
realized  that  there  are  people  who  stand  ready  to  buy 


4  STRANGE  TRAILS 

it  by  the  foot,  as  one  buys  real  estate  or  rope.  I  had 
always  supposed  that  the  only  way  adventure  could  be 
capitalized  was  as  material  for  magazine  articles  and 
books  and  for  dinner-table  stories. 

"What  we  are  after"  the  film  magnate  began  ab- 
ruptly, motioning  me  to  a  capacious  leather  chair  and 
pushing  a  box  of  cigars  within  my  reach,  "is  some- 
thing new  in  travel  pictures.  Like  most  of  the  big 
producers,  we  furnish  our  exhibitors  with  complete 
programmes — a  feature,  a  comedy,  a  topical  review, 
and  a  travel  or  educational  picture.  We  make  the 
features  and  the  comedies  in  our  own  studios;  the 
weeklies  we  buy  from  companies  which  specialize  in 
that  sort  of  thing.  But  heretofore  we  have  had  to 
pick  up  our  travel  stuff  where  we  could  get  it — from 
free  lances  mostly — and  there  is  never  enough  really 
good  travel  material  to  meet  the  demand.  For  quite 
ordinary  travel  or  educational  films  we  have  to  pay  a 
minimum  of  two  dollars  a  foot,  while  really  unusual 
pictures  will  bring  almost  any  price  that  is  asked  for 
them.  The  supply  is  so  uncertain,  however,  and  the 
price  is  so  high  that  we  have  decided  to  try  the  experi- 
ment of  taking  our  own.  That  is  what  I  wanted  to 
talk  to  you  about." 

"Before  the  war,"  he  continued,  "there  was  almost 
no  demand  in  the  United  States  for  travel  pictures.  In 
fact,  when  a  manager  wanted  to  clear  his  house  for 
the  next  show,  he  would  put  a  travel  picture  on  the 
screen.  But  since  the  boys  have  been  coming  back 
from  France  and  Germany  and  Siberia  and  Russia  the 


MAGIC  ISLES  AND  FAIRY  SEAS          5 

public  has  begun  to  call  for  travel  films  again.  They've 
heard  their  sons  and  brothers  and  sweethearts  tell 
about  the  strange  places  they've  been,  and  the  strange 
things  they've  seen,  and  I  suppose  it  makes  them  want 
to  learn  more  about  those  parts  of  the  world  that  lie 
east  of  Battery  Place  and  west  of  the  Golden  Gate. 
But  we  don't  want  the  old  bromide  stuff,  mind  you — 
mountain-climbing  in  Switzerland,  cutting  sugar-cane 
in  Cuba,  picking  cocoanuts  in  Ceylon.  That  sort  of 
thing  goes  well  enough  on  the  Chautauqua  circuits, 
but  it's  as  dead  as  the  corner  saloon  so  far  as  the  big 
cities  are  concerned.  What  we  are  looking  for  are 
unusual  pictures — tigers,  elephants,  pirates,  brigands, 
cannibals,  Oriental  temples  and  palaces,  war-dances, 
weird  ceremonies,  curious  customs,  natives  with  rings 
in  their  noses  and  feathers  in  their  hair,  scenes  that 
are  spectacular  and  exciting — in  short,  what  the  maga- 
zine editors  call  'adventure  stuff.'  We  want  pic- 
tures that  will  make  'em  sit  up  in  their  seats  and  ex- 
claim, 'Well,  what  d'ye  know  about  that?'  and  that 
will  send  them  away  to  tell  their  friends  about  them.'.' 

"Like  the  publisher,"  I  suggested,  "who  remarked 
that  his  idea  of  a  good  newspaper  was  one  that  would 
cause  its  readers  to  exclaim  when  they  opened  it,  'My 
God!'?" 

"That's  the  idea,"  he  agreed.  "And  if  the  pictures 
are  from  places  that  most  people  have  never  heard  of 
before,  so  much  the  better.  I'm  told  that  you've  spent 
your  life  looking  for  queer  places  to  write  about.  So 
why  can't  you  suggest  some  to  take  pictures  of?" 


6  STRANGE  TRAILS 

"But  I've  had  no  practical  experience  in  taking 
motion-pictures,"  I  protested.  "The  only  time  I  ever 
touched  a  motion-picture  camera  was  when  I  turned 
the  crank  of  Donald  Thompson's  for  a  few  minutes 
during  the  entry  of  the  Germans  into  Antwerp  in 

1914." 

"Were  the  pictures  a  success?"  the  Napoleon  of 
the  Movies  queried  interestedly.  "I  don't  recall  hav- 
ing seen  them." 

"No,  you  wouldn't,"  I  hastened  to  explain.  "You 
see,  it  wasn't  until  the  show  was  all  over  that  Thomp- 
son discovered  that  he  had  forgotten  to  take  the  cap 
off  the  lens." 

"Don't  let  that  worry  you,"  he  assured  me.  "We'll 
take  care  of  the  technical  end.  We'll  provide  you  with 
the  best  camera  man  to  be  had  and  the  best  equip- 
ment. All  you  will  have  to  do  is  to  show  him  what  to 
photograph,  arrange  the  action,  decide  on  the  settings, 
obtain  the  permission  of  the  authorities,  the  good-will 
of  the  officials,  the  co-operation  of  the  military,  engage 
interpreters  and  guides,  reserve  hotel  accommodations, 
arrange  for  motor-cars  and  boats  and  horses  and  spe- 
cial trains,  and  keep  everyone  jollied  up  and  feeling 
good  generally.  Aside  from  that,  there  won't  be  any- 
thing for  you  to  do  except  to  enjoy  yourself." 

"It  certainly  sounds  alluring,"  I  admitted.  "The 
trouble  is  that  you  are  looking  for  something  that 
can't  always  be  found.  You  don't  find  adventure 
the  way  you  find  four-leaf  clovers;  it  just  happens  to 
you,  like  the  measles  or  a  blow-out.  Still,  if  one  has 


MAGIC  ISLES  AND  FAIRY  SEAS          7 

the  time  and  money  to  go  after  them,  there  are  a  lot 
of  curious  things  that  might  pass  for  adventure  when 
they  are  shown  on  the  screen." 

"Where  are  they?"  the  film  magnate  asked  eagerly, 
spreading  upon  his  mahogany  desk  a  map  of  the  world. 

It  v/as  a  little  disconcerting,  this  request  to  point 
out  those  regions  where  adventure  could  be  found, 
very  much  as  a  visitor  from  the  provinces  might  ask 
a  New  York  hotel  clerk  to  tell  him  where  he  could 
see  the  Bohemian  life  of  which  he  had  read  in  the 
Sunday  supplements. 

"There's  Russian  Central  Asia,  of  course,"  I  sug- 
gested tentatively.  "Samarkand  and  Bokhara  and 
Tashkent,  you  know.  But  I'm  afraid  they're  out  of 
the  question  on  account  of  the  Bolsheviki.  Besides, 
I'm  not  looking  for  the  sort  of  adventure  that  ends 
between  a  stone  wall  and  a  firing-party.  Then  there 
are  some  queer  emirates  along  the  southern  edge  of 
the  Sahara :  Sokoto  and  Kanem  and  Bornu  and  Wadai. 
But  it  would  take  at  least  six  months  to  obtain  the 
necessary  permission  from  the  French  and  British 
colonial  offices  and  to  arrange  the  other  details  of  the 
expedition." 

"But  that  doesn't  exhaust  the  possibilities  by  any 
means,"  I  continued  hastily,  for  nothing  was  farther 
from  my  wish  than  to  discourage  so  fascinating  a  plan. 
"There  ought  to  be  some  splendid  picture  material 
among  the  Dyaks  of  Borneo — they're  head-hunters, 
you  know.  From  there  we  could  jump  across  to  the 
Celebes  and  possibly  to  New  Guinea.  And  I  under- 


8  STRANGE  TRAILS 

stand  that  they  have  some  queer  customs  on  the  island 
of  Bali,  over  beyond  Java ;  in  fact,  I've  been  told  that, 
in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  the  Dutch  to  stop  it,  the 
Balinese  still  practise  suttee.  A  picture  of  a  widow 
being  burned  on  her  husband's  funeral  pyre  would  be 
a  bit  out  of  the  ordinary,  wouldn't  it?  That  reminds 
me  that  I  read  somewhere  the  other  day  that  next 
spring  there  is  to  be  a  big  royal  wedding  in  Djokja- 
karta, in  middle  Java,  with  all  sorts  of  gorgeous  fes- 
tivities. At  Batavia  we  would  have  no  difficulty  in 
getting  a  steamer  for  Singapore,  and  from  there  we 
could  go  overland  by  the  new  Federated  Malay  States 
Railway,  through  Johore  and  Malacca  and  Kuala 
Lumpur,  to  Siam,  where  the  cats  and  the  twins  and  the 
white  elephants  come  from.  From  Bangkok  we  might 
take  a  short-cut  through  the  Cambodian  jungle,  by 
elephant,  to  Pnom-Penh  and " 

"Hold  on!"  the  Movie  King  protested.  "That's 
plenty.  Let  me  come  up  for  air.  Those  names 
you've  been  reeling  off  mean  as  much  to  me  as 
the  dishes  on  the  menu  of  a  Chinese  restaurant.  But 
that's  what  we're  after.  We  want  the  people  who  see 
the  pictures  to  say:  'Where  the  dickens  is  that  place? 
I  never  heard  of  it  before.'  They  get  to  arguing 
about  it,  and  when  they  get  home  they  look  it  up  in 
the  family  atlas,  and  when  they  find  how  far  away  it 
is,  they  feel  that  they've  had  their  money's  worth. 
How  soon  can  you  be  ready  to  start?" 

"How  soon,"  I  countered,  "can  you  have  a  letter  of 
credit  ready?" 


MAGIC  ISLES  AND  FAIRY  SEAS          9 

Owing  to  the  urgent  requirements  of  the  European 
governments,  vessels  of  every  description  were,  as  I 
discovered  upon  our  arrival  at  Manila,  few  and  far 
between  in  Eastern  seas;  so,  in  spite  of  the  assurance 
that  I  was  not  to  permit  the  question  of  expense  to 
curtail  my  itinerary,  it  is  perfectly  certain  that  we  could 
not  have  visited  the  remote  and  inaccessible  places 
which  we  did  had  it  not  been  for  the  lively  interest 
taken  in  our  enterprise  by  the  Honorable  Francis  Bur- 
ton Harrison,  Governor-General  of  the  Philippines, 
and  by  the  Honorable  Manuel  Quezon,  President  of 
the  Philippine  Senate.  When  Governor-General  Har- 
rison learned  that  I  wished  to  take  pictures  in  the  Sulu 
Archipelago,  he  kindly  offered,  in  order  to  facilitate 
our  movements  from  island  to  island,  to  place  at  my 
disposal  a  coast-guard  cutter,  just  as  a  friend  might 
offer  one  the  use  of  his  motor-car.  There  was  at  first 
some  question  as  to  whether  the  Governor-General 
had  the  authority  to  send  a  government  vessel  outside 
of  territorial  waters,  but  Mr.  Quezon,  who,  so  far  as 
influence  goes,  is  a  Henry  Cabot  Lodge  and  a  Boies 
Penrose  combined,  unearthed  a  law  which  permitted 
him  to  utilize  the  vessels  of  the  coast-guard  service  for 
the  purpose  of  entertaining  visitors  to  the  islands  in 
such  ways  as  the  Government  of  the  Philippines  saw 
fit.  And,  in  a  manner  of  speaking,  Mr.  Quezon  is  the 
Government  of  the  Philippines.  Thus  it  came  about 
that  on  the  last  day  of  February,  1920,  the  coast-guard 
cutter  Negros,  150  tons  and  150  feet  over  all — with  a 
crew  of  sixty  men,  Captain  A.  B.  Galvez  commanding, 


io  STRANGE  TRAILS 

and  having  on  board  the  Lovely  Lady,  who  accom- 
panies me  on  all  my  travels;  the  Winsome  Widow, 
who  joined  us  in  Seattle ;  the  Doctor,  who  is  an  officer 
of  the  United  States  Health  Service  stationed  at  Ma- 
nila; John  L.  Hawkinson,  the  efficient  and  imper- 
turbable man  behind  the  camera;  three  friends  of  the 
Governor-General,  who  went  along  for  the  ride;  and 
myself — steamed  out  of  Manila  Bay  into  the  crimson 
glory  of  a  tropic  sunset,  and,  when  past  Cavite  and 
Corregidor,  laid  her  course  due  south  toward  those 
magic  isles  and  fairy  seas  which  are  so  full  of  mystery 
and  romance,  so  packed  with  possibilities  of  high  ad- 
venture. 


Governor-General  Harrison  believed,  by  methods 
that  are  legitimate,  in  adding  to  the  American  public's 
knowledge  of  the  Philippines,  and  it  was  owing  to  his 
broad-minded  point  of  view  and  to  the  many  cable- 
grams which  he  sent  ahead  of  us,  that  at  each  port  in 
the  islands  at  which  we  touched  we  found  the  local 
officials  waiting  on  the  pier-head  to  bid  us  welcome 
and  to  assist  us.  At  Jolo,  which  is  the  capital  of  the 
Moro  country,  two  lean,  sun-tanned,  youthful-looking 
men  came  aboard  to  greet  us :  one  was  the  Honorable 
P.  W.  Rogers,  Governor  of  the  Department  of  Sulu; 
the  other  was  Captain  Link,  a  former  officer  of  con- 
stabulary who  is  now  the  Provincial  Treasurer.  In 
the  first  five  minutes  of  our  conversation  I  discovered 
that  they  knew  exactly  the  sort  of  picture  material  that 


MAGIC  ISLES  AND  FAIRY  SEAS         n 

I  wanted  and  that  they  would  help  me  to  the  limit  of 
their  ability  to  get  it.  For  that  matter,  they  themselves 
personify  adventure  in  its  most  exciting  form. 

Rogers,  who  was  originally  a  soldier,  went  to  the 
Philippines  as  orderly  for  General  Pershing  long  be- 
fore the  days  when  "Black  Jack"  was  to  win  undying 
fame  on  battlefields  half  the  world  away.  The  young 
soldier  showed  such  marked  ability  that,  thanks  to 
Pershing's  assistance,  he  obtained  a  post  as  stenog- 
rapher under  the  civil  government,  thence  rising  by 
rapid  steps  to  the  difficult  post  of  Governor  of  Sulu. 
A  better  selection  could  hardly  have  been  made,  for 
there  is  no  white  man  in  the  islands  whom  the  Moros 
more  heartily  respect  and  fear  than  their  boyish-look- 
ing governor.  Mrs.  Rogers  is  the  daughter  of  a 
German  trader  who  lived  in  Jolo  and  died  there  with 
his  boots  on.  A  year  or  so  prior  to  her  marriage  she 
was  sitting  with  her  parents  at  tiffin  when  a  Moro, 
with  whom  her  father  had  had  a  trifling  business  dis- 
agreement, knocked  at  the  door  and  asked  for  a 
moment's  conversation.  Telling  the  native  that  he 
would  talk  with  him  after  he  had  finished  his  meal, 
the  trader  returned  to  the  table.  Scarcely  had  he 
seated  himself  when  the  Moro,  who  had  slipped  unob- 
served into  the  dining  room,  sprang  like  a  panther,  his 
broad-bladed  barong  describing  a  glistening  arc,  and 
the  trader's  head  rolled  among  the  dishes.  Another 
sweep  of  the  terrible  weapon  and  the  mother's  hand 
was  severed  at  the  wrist,  while  the  future  Mrs.  Rogers 
owes  her  life  to  the  fact  that  she  fainted  and  slipped 


12  STRANGE  TRAILS 

under  the  table.    I  relate  this  incident  in  order  to  give 
you  some  idea  of  the  local  atmosphere. 

A  few  weeks  before  our  arrival  at  Jolo,  Governor 
Rogers,  in  compliance  with  instructions  from  Manila, 
had  ordered  a  census  of  the  inhabitants.  But  the 
Moros  are  a  highly  suspicious  folk,  so,  when  some  one 
started  the  rumor  that  the  government  was  planning 
to  brand  them,  as  it  brands  its  mules  and  horses,  it 
promptly  gained  wide  credence.  By  tactful  explana- 
tions the  suspicions  of  most  of  the  natives  were  al- 
layed, but  one  Moro,  notorious  as  a  bad  man,  barri- 
caded himself,  together  with  five  of  his  friends,  three 
women  and  a  boy,  in  his  house — a  nipa  hut  raised 
above  the  ground  on  stilts — and  defied  the  Governor 
to  enumerate  them.  Now,  if  the  Governor  had  per- 
mitted such  open  defiance  to  pass  unnoticed,  the  entire 
population  of  Jolo,  always  ready  for  trouble,  promptly 
would  have  gotten  out  of  hand.  So,  accompanied  by 
five  troopers  of  the  constabulary,  he  rode  out  to  the 
outlaw's  house  and  attempted  to  reason  with  him.  The 
man  obstinately  refused  to  show  himself,  however, 
even  turning  a  deaf  ear  to  the  appeals  of  the  village 
imam.  Thereupon  Rogers  ordered  the  constabulary 
to  open  fire,  their  shots  being  answered  by  a  fusillade 
from  the  Moros  barricaded  in  the  house.  In  twenty 
minutes  the  flimsy  structure  looked  more  like  a  sieve 
than  a  dwelling.  When  the  firing  ceased  a  six-year-old 
boy  descended  the  ladder  and,  approaching  the  Gov- 
ernor, remarked  unconcernedly:  "You  can  go  in  now. 
They're  all  dead."  Then  Rogers  called  up  the  cen- 


MAGIC  ISLES  AND  FAIRY  SEAS         13 

sus-taker  and  told  him  to  go  ahead  with  his  enumera- 
tion. 

The  provincial  treasurer,  Captain  Link,  is  a  lean, 
lithe  South  Carolinian  who  has  spent  fifteen  years  in 
Moroland.  He  is  what  is  known  in  the  cattle  country 
as  a  "go-gitter."  It  is  told  of  him  that  he  once  nearly 
lost  his  commission,  while  in  the  constabulary,  by 
sending  to  the  Governor,  as  a  Christmas  present,  a 
package  which,  upon  being  opened,  was  found  to  con- 
tain the  head  of  a  much-wanted  outlaw. 

"I  knew  he  wanted  that  fellow's  head  more  than 
anything  else  in  the  world,"  Captain  Link  said  naively, 
in  telling  me  the  story,  "so  it  struck  me  it  would  be 
just  the  thing  to  send  him  for  a  Christmas  present.  I 
spent  a  lot  of  time  and  trouble  getting  it  too,  for  the 
fellow  sure  was  a  bad  hombre.  It  would  have  gotten 
by  all  right,  but  the  Governor's  wife,  thinking  it  was 
a  present  for  herself,  had  to  go  and  open  the  package. 
She  went  into  hysterics  when  she  saw  what  was  inside 
and  the  Governor  was  so  mad  he  nearly  fired  me. 
Some  people  have  no  sense  of  humor." 

Atop  of  the  bookcase  in  Captain  Link's  study — the 
bookcase,  by  the  way,  contains  Burton's  Thousand  and 
One  Nights,  the  Discourses  of  Epictetus,  and  Presi- 
dent Eliot's  tabloid  classics — is  the  skull  in  question, 
surmounted  by  a  Moro  fez.  Across  the  front  of  the 
fez  is  printed  this  significant  legend: 

THIS   IS  JOHN   HENRY 
JOHN  HENRY  DISOBEYED  CAPTAIN   LINK 

Sic  Transit  Gloria  Mundi 


i4  STRANGE  TRAILS 

While  we  are  on  the  subject,  let  me  tell  you  about 
another  of  these  advance-guards  of  civilization  who, 
single-handed,  transformed  a  worthless  island  in  the 
Sulu  Sea  into  a  veritable  Garden  of  the  Lord  and  its 
inhabitants  from  warlike  savages  into  peaceful  and 
prosperous  farmers.  In  1914  a  short,  bespectacled 
Michigander  named  Warner  was  sent  by  the  Philippine 
Bureau  of  Education  to  Siassi,  one  of  the  islands  of 
the  Sulu  group,  to  teach  its  Moro  inhabitants  the  rudi- 
ments of  American  civilization.  Warner's  sole  equip- 
ment for  the  job  consisted,  as  he  candidly  admitted,  of 
a  medical  education.  He  took  with  him  a  number  of 
Filipino  assistants,  but  as  they  did  not  get  along  with 
the  Moros,  he  shipped  them  back  to  Manila  and  sent 
for  an  Airedale  dog.  He  also  sent  for  all  the  works 
on  agriculture  and  gardening  that  were  to  be  had  in 
the  bookshops  of  the  capital.  For  five  years  he  re- 
mained on  Siassi,  the  only  white  man.  As  even  the  lit- 
tle inter-island  steamers  rarely  find  their  way  there, 
months  sometimes  passed  without  his  hearing  from  the 
outside  world.  But  he  was  too  busy  to  be  lonely.  His 
jurisdiction  extended  over  two  islands,  separated  by  a 
narrow  channel,  but  this  he  never  crossed  at  night  and 
in  the  daytime  only  when  he  was  compelled  to,  as  the 
narrow  channel  was  the  home  of  giant  crocodiles  which 
not  infrequently  attacked  and  capsized  the  frail 
native  vintas,  killing  their  occupants  as  they  struggled 
in  the  water. 

Warner,  who  had  spent  four  years  among  the 
Visayans  before  going  to  Siassi,  and  who  was,  there- 


MAGIC  ISLES  AND  FAIRY  SEAS         15 

fore,  eminently  qualified  to  compare  the  northern 
islanders  with  the  Moros,  told  me  that  the  latter 
possess  a  much  higher  type  of  intelligence  than  the 
Filipinos  and  assimilate  new  ideas  far  more  quickly. 
He  added  that  they  have  a  highly  developed  sense  of 
humor;  that  they  are  quick  to  appreciate  subtle  stories, 
which  the  Tagalogs  and  Visayans  are  not;  and  that 
they  are  much  more  ready  to  accept  advice  on  agricul- 
tural and  economic  matters  than  the  Christian  Fili- 
pinos, who  have  a  life-sized  opinion  of  their  own  abil- 
ity. When  the  day's  work  was  over,  he  said,  he  would 
seat  himself  in  the  doorway  of  his  hut,  surrounded 
by  a  group  of  Moros,  and  discuss  crops  and  weather 
prospects,  swap  jokes  and  tell  stories,  just  as  he  might 
have  done  with  lighter  skinned  sons  of  toil  around  the 
cracker-barrel  of  a  cross-roads  store  in  New  England. 
He  added  that  he  was  sadly  in  need  of  some  new 
stories  to  tell  his  Moro  proteges,  as,  after  six  years 
on  the  island,  his  own  fund  was  about  exhausted.  But 
he  was  growing  weary  of  life  on  Siassi,  he  told  me; 
he  wanted  action  and  excitement;  so  he  was  preparing 
to  move,  with  his  Airedale,  to  Bohol,  in  the  Visayas, 
where,  he  had  heard  it  rumored,  there  was  another 
white  man. 

Still  another  of  the  picturesque  characters  with 
whom  I  foregathered  nightly  on  the  after-deck  of  the 
Negros  during  our  stay  at  Jolo  was  a  former  soldier, 
John  Jennings  by  name.  He  was  an  operative  of  the 
Philippine  Secret  Service,  being  engaged  at  the  time 
in  breaking  up  the  running  of  opium  from  Borneo 


1 6  STRANGE  TRAILS 

across  the  Sulu  Sea  to  the  Moro  islands.  Jennings  is 
a  short,  thickset,  powerfully-built  man,  all  nerve  and 
no  nerves.  Adventure  is  his  middle  name.  He  has 
lived  more  stories  than  I  could  invent.  Shortly  before 
our  arrival  at  Jolo  Jennings  had  learned  from  a  native 
in  his  pay  that  a  son  of  the  Flowery  Kingdom,  the 
proprietor  of  a  notorious  gambling  resort  situated  on 
the  quarter-mile-long  ramshackle  wharf  known  as  the 
Chinese  pier,  was  driving  a  roaring  trade  in  the  for- 
bidden drug.  So  one  afternoon  Jennings,  his  hands  in 
his  pockets  and  in  each  pocket  a  service  automatic, 
sauntered  carelessly  along  the  pier  and  upon  reaching 
the  reputed  opium  den,  knocked  briskly  on  the  door. 
The  Chinese  proprietor  evidently  suspected  the  pur- 
pose of  his  visit,  however,  for  he  was  unable  to  gain 
admittance.  So  that  night,  wearing  the  huge  straw 
sun-hat  and  flapping  garments  of  blue  cotton  of  a 
coolie,  he  tried  again.  This  time  in  response  to  his 
knock  the  heavy  door  swung  open.  Within  all  w^as 
black  and  silent  as  the  tomb.  The  lintel  was  low 
and  Jennings  was  compelled  to  stoop  in  order  to  enter. 
As  he  cautiously  set  foot  across  the  threshold  there 
was  a  sudden  swish  of  steel  in  the  darkness  and  the 
blade  of  a  barong  whistled  past  his  face,  slicing  off 
the  front  of  his  hat  and  missing  his  head  by  the  width 
of  an  eyelash.  As  he  sprang  back  the  door  slammed 
in  his  face  and  he  heard  the  bolts  shot  home,  fol- 
lowed by  the  sound  of  a  weapon  clattering  on  the 
floor  and  the  patter  of  naked  feet.  Realizing  that  the 
men  he  was  after  were  making  their  escape  by  another 


MAGIC  ISLES  AND  FAIRY  SEAS        17 

exit,  Jennings  hurled  himself  against  the  door,  an  auto- 
matic in  either  hand.  It  gave  way  before  his  as- 
sault and  he  was  precipitated  headlong  into  the  inky 
blackness  of  the  room.  Taking  no  chances  this  time, 
he  raked  it  with  a  stream  of  lead  from  end  to  end. 
Then,  there  being  no  further  sound,  he  swept  the 
place  with  a  beam  from  his  electric  torch.  Stretched 
on  the  floor  were  three  dead  Chinamen  and  beside 
them  was  enough  opium  to  have  drugged  everyone 
on  the  island.  That  little  episode,  as  Jennings  re- 
marked dryly,  put  quite  a  crimp  in  the  opium  traffic 
in  Jolo. 


Cockfighting,  which  is  as  popular  throughout  the 
Philippines  as  baseball  is  in  the  United  States,  finds  its 
most  enthusiastic  devotees  among  the  Moros,  every 
community  in  the  Sulu  islands  having  its  cockpit  and  its 
fighting  birds,  on  whose  prowess  the  natives  gamble 
with  reckless  abandon.  Gambling  is,  indeed,  the 
raison  d'etre  of  cockfighting  in  Moroland,  for,  as  the 
birds  are  armed  with  four-inch  spurs  of  razor  sharp- 
ness, and  as  one  or  both  birds  are  usually  killed  within 
a  few  minutes  after  they  are  tossed  into  the  pit,  very 
little  sport  attaches  to  the  contest.  The  villagers  are 
inordinately  proud  of  their  local  fighting-cocks,  boast- 
ing of  their  prowess  as  a  Bostonian  boasts  of  the 
Braves  or  a  New  Yorker  of  the  Giants,  and  are  always 
ready  to  back  them  to  the  limit  of  their  means. 

Some  years  ago,  according  to  a  story  that  was  told 


18  STRANGE  TRAILS 

me  in  the  islands — for  the  truth  of  which  I  do  not 
vouch — an  American  destroyer  dropped  anchor  off 
Cebu,  the  second  largest  city  in  the  Philippines.  That 
night  a  shore  party  of  bluejackets,  wandering  about 
the  town  in  quest  of  amusement,  dropped  in  at  a  cock- 
pit where  a  main  was  in  progress.  Noting  the  large 
wagers  laid  by  the  excited  natives  on  their  favorite 
birds,  the  sailors  offered  to  back  a  "chicken"  which 
they  had  aboard  the  destroyer  against  all  the  cocks  in 
Cebu.  The  natives,  smiling  in  their  sleeves  at  the 
prospect  of  taking  money  so  easily  from  the  Ameri- 
canos, promptly  accepted  the  challenge  and  some  hun- 
dreds of  pesos  were  laid  against  the  unknown  bird. 
At  the  hour  set  for  the  fight  the  grinning  sailors  ap- 
peared at  the  cockpit  with  their  "chicken,"  the  mascot 
of  the  destroyer — a  large  American  eagle!  Ensued, 
of  course,  a  torrent  of  protest  and  remonstrance, 
but  the  money  was  already  up  and  the  bluejackets 
demanded  action.  So  the  eagle  was  anchored  by  a 
chain  in  the  center  of  the  pit,  where  it  sat  motionless 
and  apathetic,  head  on  one  side,  eyelids  drooping, 
apparently  half  asleep — until  a  cock  was  tossed  into 
the  pit.  Then  there  was  a  lightning-like  flash  of  the 
mighty  talons  and  all  that  was  left  of  the  Cebuan 
champion  was  a  heap  of  bloodied  feathers.  The 
"match"  was  quickly  over  and  the  triumphant  sailors, 
collecting  their  bets,  departed  for  their  ship.  Ever 
since  then  there  has  been  a  proverb  in  Cebu — "Never 
match  your  cock  against  an  American  chicken." 


MAGIC  ISLES  AND  FAIRY  SEAS         19 

Governor  Rogers  informed  me  that,  in  compliance 
with  a  cablegram  from  the  Governor-General,  he  had 
arranged  a  "show"  for  us  at  a  village  called  Parang, 
on  the  other  side  of  the  island.  The  "show,"  I  gath- 
ered, was  to  consist  of  a  stag-hunt,  shark-fishing,  war- 
dances,  and  pony  races,  and  was  to  conclude  with  a  na- 
tive bull-fight.  One  of  the  favorite  sports  of  the 
Moros  is  hunting  the  small  native  stag  on  horseback, 
tiring  it  out,  and  killing  it  with  spears.  As  it  devel- 
oped, however,  that  there  was  no  certainty  of  being 
able  so  to  stage-manage  the  affair  that  either  the  hunt- 
ers or  the  hunted  would  come  within  the  range  of  the 
camera,  we  regretfully  decided  to  dispense  with  that 
number  of  the  programme. 

When  we  arrived  at  Parang  it  looked  as  though  the 
entire  population  of  the  island  had  assembled  for  the 
occasion.  The  native  police  were  keeping  clear  a 
circle  in  which  the  dances  were  to  take  place,  while  the 
slanting  trunks  of  the  cocoanut-palms  provided  re- 
served seats  for  scores  of  tan  and  chocolate  and  coffee- 
colored  youngsters.  We  were  greeted  by  the  Pang- 
lima  of  Parang,  the  overlord  of  the  district,  who 
explained,  through  Governor  Rogers,  that  he  had  had 
prepared  a  little  repast  of  which  he  hoped  that  we 
would  deign  to  partake.  Now,  after  you  know  some 
of  the  secrets  of  Moro  cooking  and  have  had  a  glimpse 
into  a  Moro  kitchen,  even  the  most  robust  appetite  is 
usually  dampened.  But  the  Governor  whispered  "The 
old  man  has  gone  to  a  lot  of  trouble  to  arrange  this 
show  and  if  you  refuse  to  eat  his  food  he'll  be  mor- 


20  STRANGE  TRAILS 

tally  offended,"  so,  purely  in  the  interests  of  amity,  we 
seated  ourselves  at  the  table,  which  had  been  set  under 
the  palms  in  the  open.    I  don't  know  what  we  ate  and 
I  don't  care  to  know — though  I  admit  that  I  had  some 
uneasy  suspicions — but,  with  the  uncompromising  eye 
of  the  old  Panglima  fixed  sternly  upon  us,  we  did  our 
best  to  convince  him  that  we  appreciated  his  cuisine. 
But  the  dancing  which  followed  made  us  forget  what 
we  had  eaten.     During  the  ensuing  months  we  were 
to  see  dances  in  many  lands — in  Borneo  and  Bali  and 
Java  and  Siam  and  Cambodia — but  they  were  all  char- 
acterized by  a  certain  monotony  and  sameness.    These 
Moro  dancers,  however,  were  in  a  class  by  themselves. 
If  they  could  be  brought  across  the  ocean  and  would 
dance  before  an  audience  on  Broadway  with  the  same 
savage  abandon  with  which  they  danced  before  the 
camera  under  the  palm-trees  of  Parang,  there  would 
be  a  line  a  block  long  in  front  of  the  box-office.     One 
of  the  dances  was  symbolical  of  a  cock-fight,  the  cocks 
being  personified  by  a  young  woman  and  a  boy.     It 
was  sheer  barbarism,  of  course,  but  it  was  fascinating. 
And  the  curious  thing  about  it  was  that  the  hundreds 
of  Moros  who  stood  and  squatted  in  a  great  circle, 
and  who  had  doubtless  seen  the  same  thing  scores  of 
times  before,  were  so  engrossed  in  the  movements  of 
the  dance,  each  of  which  had  its  subtle  shade  of  mean- 
ing, that  they  became  utterly  oblivious  to  our  pres- 
ence or  to  Hawkinson's  steady  grinding  of  the  camera. 
In  the  war-dance  the  participants,  who  were  Moro 
fighting  men,  and  were  armed  with  spears,  shields,  and 


MAGIC  ISLES  AND  FAIRY  SEAS        21 

the  vicious,  broad-bladed  knives  known  as  barongs, 
gave  a  highly  realistic  representation  of  pinning  an 
enemy  to  the  earth  with  a  spear,  and  with  the  barong 
decapitating  him.  The  first  part  of  the  dance,  before 
the  passions  of  the  savages  became  aroused,  was,  how- 
ever, monotonous  and  uninteresting. 

"Can't  you  stir  'em  up  a  little?"  called  Hawkinson, 
who,  like  all  camera  men,  demands  constant  action. 
"Tell  'em  that  this  film  costs  money  and  that  we  didn't 
come  here  to  take  pictures  of  Loie  Fuller  stuff." 

"I  think  it  might  be  as  well  to  let  them  take  their 
time  about  it,"  remarked  Captain  Link.  "These 
Moros  always  get  very  much  worked  up  in  their  war- 
dances,  and  occasionally  they  forget  that  it  is  all  make- 
believe  and  send  a  spear  into  a  spectator.  It's  safer 
to  leave  them  alone.  They're  very  temperamental." 

"That  would  make  a  corking  picture,"  said  Hawkin- 
son enthusiastically,  "if  I  only  knew  which  fellow  was 
going  to  be  speared  so  that  I  could  get  the  camera 
focussed  on  him." 

"The  only  trouble  is,"  I  remarked  dryly,  "that  they 
might  possibly  pick  out  you" 

In  Spanish  bull-fights,  after  the  banderillos  and 
picadores  have  tormented  the  bull  until  it  is  exhausted, 
the  matador  flaunts  a  scarlet  cloak  in  front  of  the 
beast  until  it  is  bewildered  and  then  despatches  it 
with  a  sword.  In  Moroland,  however,  the  bulls,  which 
are  bred  and  trained  for  the  purpose,  do  their  best  to 
kill  each  other,  thus  making  the  fight  a  much  more 


22  STRANGE  TRAILS 

sporting  proposition.  The  bull-fight  which  was  ar- 
ranged for  our  benefit  at  Parang  was  staged  in  a  field 
of  about  two  acres  just  outside  the  town,  the  spectators 
being  kept  at  a  safe  distance  by  a  troop  of  Moro 
horsemen  under  the  direction  of  the  old  Panglima. 
After  Hawkinson  had  set  up  his  camera  on  the  edge 
of  this  extemporized  arena  the  bulls  were  brought  in : 
medium-sized  but  exceptionally  powerful  beasts,  the 
muscles  rippling  under  their  sleek  brown  coats,  their 
short  horns  filed  to  the  sharpness  of  lance-tips.  Each 
animal  was  led  by  its  owner,  who  was  able  to  control 
it  to  a  limited  degree  during  the  fight  by  means  of  a 
cord  attached  to  the  ring  in  its  nose.  When  the 
signal  was  given  for  the  fight  to  begin,  the  bulls  ap- 
proached each  other  cautiously,  snorting  and  pawing 
the  ground.  They  reminded  me  of  two  strange  dogs 
who  cannot  decide  whether  they  wish  to  fight  or  be 
friends.  For  ten  minutes,  regardless  of  the  jeers  of 
the  spectators  and  the  proddings  of  their  handlers, 
the  great  brown  beasts  rubbed  heads  as  amicably  as  a 
yoke  of  oxen.  Then,  just  as  we  had  made  up  our 
minds  that  it  was  a  fiasco  and  that  there  would  be  no 
bull-fight  pictures,  there  was  a  sudden  angry  bellow, 
the  two  great  heads  came  together  with  a  thud  like  a 
pile-driver,  and  the  fight  was  on.  The  next  twenty 
minutes  Hawkinson  and  I  spent  in  alternately  setting 
up  his  camera  within  range  of  the  panting,  straining 
animals  and  in  picking  it  up  and  running  for  our  lives, 
in  order  to  avoid  being  trampled  by  the  maddened 
beasts  in  their  furious  and  unexpected  onslaughts. 


PL, 


-& 

y= 


MAGIC  ISLES  AND  FAIRY  SEAS        23 

The  men  at  the  ends  of  the  nose-ropes  were  as  help- 
less to  control  their  infuriated  charges  as  a  trout  fish- 
erman who  has  hooked  a  shark.  With  horns  inter- 
locked and  with  blood  and  sweat  dripping  from  their 
massive  necks  and  shoulders,  they  fought  each  other, 
step  by  step,  across  the  width  of  the  arena,  across 
a  cultivated  field  which  lay  beyond,  burst  through 
a  thorn  hedge  surrounding  a  native's  patch  of  gar- 
den, trampled  the  garden  into  mire,  and  narrowly 
escaped  bringing  down  on  top  of  them  the  owner's 
dwelling,  which,  like  most  Moro  houses,  was  raised 
above  the  ground  on  stilts.  It  looked  for  a  time  as 
though  the  fight  would  continue  over  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  island,  but  it  was  brought  to  an  abrupt 
conclusion  when  one  of  the  bulls,  withdrawing  a  few 
yards,  to  gain  momentum,  charged  like  a  tank  attack- 
ing the  Hindenburg  Line,  driving  one  of  its  horns 
deep  into  its  adversary's  eye-socket,  whereupon  the 
wounded  animal,  half-blinded  and  mad  with  pain, 
turned  precipitately,  jerked  the  nose-rope  from  its 
owner's  grasp,  and  stampeding  the  spectators  in  its 
mad  flight,  disappeared  in  the  depths  of  the  jungle. 

"That,"  announced  the  Governor,  "concludes  the 
morning  performance.  This  afternoon  we  will  pre- 
sent for  your  approval  a  programme  consisting  of  pony 
races,  a  carabao  fight,  a  shark-fishing  expedition,  and, 
if  time  permits,  a  visit  to  the  pearl-fisheries  to  see  the 
divers  at  work.  This  evening  we  will  call  on  the 
Princess  Fatimah,  the  daughter  of  the  Sultan,  and 


24  STRANGE  TRAILS 

tomorrow  I  have  arranged  to  take  you  to  Tapul  Island 

to  shoot  wild  carabao.    After  that " 

"After  that,"  I  interrupted,  "we  go  away  from 
here.  If  we  stayed  on  in  this  quiet  little  island  of 
yours  much  longer,  we  shouldn't  have  any  film  left  for 
the  other  places." 


CHAPTER  II 

OUTPOSTS   OF   EMPIRE 

WE  sailed  at  sunset  out  of  Jolo  and  all  through  the 
breathless  tropic  night  the  Negros  forged  ahead  at 
half-speed,  her  sharp  prow  cleaving  the  still  bosom 
of  the  Sulu  Sea  as  silently  as  a  gondola  stealing  down 
the  Canale  Grande.  So  oppressive  was  the  night  that 
sleep  was  out  of  the  question,  and  I  leaned  upon  the 
rail  of  the  bridge,  the  hot  land  breeze,  laden  with  the 
mysterious  odors  of  the  tropics,  beating  softly  in  my 
face,  and  listlessly  watched  the  phosphorescent  ostrich 
feathers  curling  from  our  bows.  Behind  me,  in  the 
darkened  chart-room,  the  Filipino  quartermaster 
gently  swung  the  wheel  from  time  to  time  in  response 
to  the  direction  of  the  needle  on  the  illuminated  com- 
pass-dial. So  lifeless  was  the  sea  that  our  foremast 
barely  swayed  against  the  stars.  The  smoke  from  our 
funnel  trailed  across  the  purple  canopy  of  the  sky  as 
though  smeared  with  an  inky  brush. 

How  long  I  stood  there,  lost  in  reverie,  I  have  no 
idea :  hours  no  doubt.  I  must  have  fallen  into  a  doze, 
for  I  was  awakened  by  the  brisk,  incisive  strokes  of 
the  ship's  bell,  echoed,  a  moment  later,  by  eight  fainter 
strokes  coming  from  the  deck  below.  Then  the  soft 
patter  of  bare  feet  which  meant  the  changing  of  the 


26  STRANGE  TRAILS 

watch.  Though  the  velvety  darkness  into  which  we 
were  steadily  ploughing  had  not  perceptibly  decreased, 
it  was  now  cut  sharply  across,  from  right  to  left, 
by  what  looked  like  a  tightly  stretched  wire  of  glow- 
ing silver.  Even  as  I  looked  this  slender  fissure 
of  illumination  widened,  almost  imperceptibly  at 
first,  then  faster,  faster,  until  at  one  burst  came  the 
dawn.  The  sombre  hangings  of  the  night  were  swept 
aside  by  an  invisible  hand  as  are  drawn  back  the  cur- 
tains at  a  window.  As  you  have  seen  from  a  hill  the 
winking  lights  of  a  city  disappear  at  daybreak,  so,  one 
by  one,  the  stars  went  out.  Masses  of  angry  clouds 
reared  themselves  in  ominous,  fantastic  forms  against 
a  sullen  sky.  The  hot  land  breeze  changed  to  a  cold 
wind  which  made  me  shiver.  Suddenly  the  mounting 
rampart  of  clouds,  which  seemed  about  to  burst  in  a 
tempest,  was  pierced  by  a  hundred  flaming  lances  com- 
ing from  beyond  the  horizon's  rim.  Before  their  on- 
slaught the  threatening  cloud-wall  crumbled,  faded, 
and  abruptly  dropped  away  to  reveal  the  sun  advanc- 
ing in  all  that  brazen  effrontery  which  it  assumes  in 
those  lawless  latitudes  along  the  Line.  Now  the  sky 
was  become  a  huge  inverted  bowl  of  flawless  azure 
porcelain,  the  surface  of  the  Sulu  Sea  sparkled  as 
though  strewn  with  a  million  diamonds,  and,  not  a 
league  off  our  bows,  rose  the  jungle-clothed  shores  of 
Borneo. 

Scattered  along  the  fringes  of  the  world  are  certain 
places  whose  names  ring  in  the  ears  of  youth  like 
trumpet-calls.  They  are  passwords  to  romance  and 


OUTPOSTS  OF  EMPIRE  27 

high  adventure.  Their  very  mention  makes  the  feet 
of  the  young  men  restless.  They  mark  the  places 
where  the  strange  trails  go  down.  Of  them  all,  the 
one  that  most  completely  captivated  my  boyish  imagi- 
nation was  Borneo.  To  me,  as  to  millions  of  other 
youngsters,  its  name  had  been  made  familiar  by  that 
purveyor  of  entertainment  to  American  boyhood, 
Phineas  T.  Barnum,  as  the  reputed  home  of  the  wild 
man.  In  its  jungles,  through  the  magic  of  Marryat's 
breathless  pages,  I  fought  the  head-hunter  and  pur- 
sued the  boa-constrictor  and  the  orang-utan.  It  was 
then,  a  boyhood  dream  come  true  when  I  stood  at 
daybreak  on  the  bridge  of  the  Negros  and  through 
my  glasses  watched  the  mysterious  island,  which  I  had 
so  often  pictured  in  my  imagination,  rise  with  tanta- 
lizing slowness  from  the  sapphire  sea. 

We  forged  ahead  cautiously,  for  our  charts  were 
none  too  recent  or  reliable  and  we  lacked  the  "Malay 
Archipelago"  volume  of  The  Sailing  Directions — the 
"Sailor's  Bible,"  as  the  big,  orange-covered  book,  full 
of  comforting  detail,  is  known.  As  the  morning  mists 
dissolved  before  the  sun  I  could  make  out  a  pale  ivory 
beach,  and  back  of  the  beach  a  band  of  green  which 
I  knew  for  jungle,  and  back  of  that,  in  turn,  a  range 
of  purple  mountains  which  culminated  in  a  majestic, 
cloud-wreathed  peak.  An  off-shore  breeze  brought  to 
my  nostrils  the  strange,  sweet  odors  of  the  hot  lands. 
A  Malay  vinta  with  widespread  bamboo  outriggers 
and  twin  sails  of  orange  flitted  by — an  enormous  but- 
terfly skimming  the  surface  of  the  water.  I  was 


28  STRANGE  TRAILS 

actually  within  sight  of  that  grim  island  whose  name 
has  ever  been  a  synonym  for  savagery.  For  never 
think  that  piracy,  head-hunting,  poisoned  darts  shot 
from  blow-guns  are  horrors  extinct  in  Borneo  today, 
for  they  are  not.  Ask  the  mariners  who  sail  these 
waters;  ask  the  keepers  of  the  lonely  lighthouses,  the 
officers  who  command  the  constabulary  outposts  in 
the  bush.  They  know  Borneo,  and  not  favorably. 

You  will  picture  Borneo,  if  you  please,  as  a  vast, 
squat  island — the  third  largest  in  the  world,  in  fact 
— half  again  as  large  as  France,  bordered  by  a  sandy 
littoral,  moated  by  swamps  reeking  with  putrid  mias- 
mata and  pernicious  vapors,  covered  with  dense  for- 
ests and  impenetrable  jungles,  ridged  by  mile-high 
mountain  ranges,  seamed  by  mighty  rivers,  inhabited 
by  the  most  savage  beasts  and  the  most  bestial  savages 
known  to  man.  Lying  squarely  athwart  the  Line,  the 
sun  beats  down  upon  it  like  the  blast  from  an  open 
furnace-door.  The  story  is  told  in  Borneo  of  a  dis- 
solute planter  who  died  from  sunstroke.  The  day 
after  the  funeral  a  spirit  message  reached  the  widow 
of  the  dear  departed.  "Please  send  down  my  blan- 
kets" it  said.  But  it  is  the  terrible  humidity  which 
makes  the  climate  dangerous;  a  humidity  due  to  the 
innumerable  swamps,  the  source  of  pestilence  and 
fever,  and  to  the  incredible  rainfall,  which  averages 
over  six  and  a  half  feet  a  year.  No  wonder  that  in 
the  Indies  Borneo  is  known  as  "The  White  Man's 
Graveyard." 

Imbedded  in  the  northern  coast  of  the  island,  like 


MALAYSIA 

SCALE    OF  MILES 


100        Longitude  East     110      .from  Greenwich    120 


OUTPOSTS  OF  EMPIRE  29 

a  row  of  semi-precious  stones  set  in  a  barbaric  brooch, 
are  the  states  of  British  North  Borneo,  Brunei,  and 
Sarawak.  Their  back-doors  open  on  the  wilderness 
of  mountain,  forest  and  jungle  which  marks  the  north- 
ern boundary  of  Dutch  Borneo;  their  front  windows 
look  out  upon  the  Sulu  and  the  China  Seas.  Of  these 
three  territories,  the  first  is  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  British  North  Borneo  Company,  a  private  cor- 
poration, which  administers  it  under  the  terms  of  a 
royal  charter.  The  second  is  ruled  by  the  Sultan  of 
Brunei,  whose  once  vast  dominions  have  steadily 
dwindled  through  cession  and  conquest  until  they  are 
now  no  larger  than  Connecticut.  On  the  throne  of 
the  last  sits  one  of  the  most  romantic  and  picturesque 
figures  in  the  world,  His  Highness  James  Vyner 
Brooke,  a  descendant  of  that  Sir  James  Brooke  who, 
in  the  middle  years  of  the  last  century,  made  himself 
the  "White  Rajah"  of  Sarawak,  and  who  might  well 
have  been  the  original  of  The  Man  Who  Would  Be 
King.  Though  all  three  governments  are  permitted 
virtually  a  free  hand  so  far  as  their  domestic  affairs 
are  concerned,  they  are  under  the  protection  of  Great 
Britain  and  their  foreign  affairs  are  controlled  from 
Westminster.  The  remaining  three-quarters  of  Bor- 
neo, which  contains  the  richest  mines,  the  finest  for- 
ests, the  largest  rivers,  and,  most  important  of  all, 
the  great  oil-fields  of  Balik-Papan,  forms  one  of  the 
Outer  Possessions,  or  Outposts,  of  Holland's  East 
Indian  Empire. 


30  STRANGE  TRAILS 

Long  before  the  yellow  ribbon  of  the  coast,  with 
its  fringe  of  palms,  became  visible  we  could  make 
out  the  towering  outline  of  Kina  Balu,  the  sacred 
mountain,  fourteen  thousand  feet  high,  which,  seen 
from  the  north,  bears  a  rather  striking  resemblance  in 
its  general  contour  to  Gibraltar.  The  natives  regard 
Kina  Balu  with  awe  and  veneration  as  the  home  of 
departed  spirits,  believing  that  it  exercises  a  powerful 
influence  on  their  lives.  When  a  man  is  dying  they 
speak  of  him  as  ascending  Kina  Balu  and  in  times  of 
drought  they  formerly  practised  a  curious  and  hor- 
rible custom,  known  as  sumunguping,  which  the 
authorities  have  now  suppressed.  When  the  crops 
showed  signs  of  failing  the  natives  decided  to  despatch 
a  messenger  direct  to  the  spirits  of  their  relatives  and 
friends  in  the  other  world  entreating  them  to  implore 
relief  from  the  gods  who  control  the  rains.  The  per- 
son chosen  to  convey  the  message  was  usually  a  slave 
or  an  enemy  captured  in  battle.  Binding  their  victim 
to  a  post,  the  warriors  of  the  tribe  advanced,  one  by 
one,  and  drove  their  spears  into  his  body,  shouting 
with  each  thrust  the  messages  which  they  wished  con- 
veyed to  the  spirits  on  the  mountain. 

With  the  coming  of  day  we  pushed  ahead  at  full 
speed.  Soon  we  could  make  out  the  precipitous  sand- 
stone cliffs  of  Balhalla,  the  island  which  screens  the 
entrance  to  Sandakan  harbor.  But  long  before  we 
came  abreast  of  the  town  signs  of  human  habitation 
became  increasingly  apparent:  little  clusters  of  nipa- 
thatched  huts  built  on  stilts  over  the  water;  others 


OUTPOSTS  OF  EMPIRE  31 

hidden  away  in  the  jungle  and  betraying  themselves 
only  by  spirals  of  smoke  rising  lazily  above  the 
feathery  tops  of  the  palms.  Sandakan  itself  straggles 
up  a  steep  wooded  hill,  the  Chinese  and  native  quar- 
ters at  its  base  wallowing  amid  a  network  of  foul- 
smelling  and  incredibly  filthy  sewers  and  canals  or 
built  on  rickety  wooden  platforms  which  extend  for 
half  a  mile  or  more  along  the  harbor's  edge.  A  little 
higher  up,  fronting  on  a  parade  ground  which  looks 
from  the  distance  like  a  huge  green  rug  spread  in  the 
sun  to  air,  are  the  government  offices,  low  structures 
of  frame  and  plaster,  designed  so  as  to  admit  a  maxi- 
mum of  air  and  a  minimum  of  heat;  the  long,  low 
building  of  the  Planters  Club,  encircled  by  deep,  cool 
verandahs;  a  Chinese  joss-house,  its  facade  enlivened 
by  grotesque  and  brilliantly  colored  carvings;  and  a 
down-at-heels  hotel.  Close  by  are  the  churches  erected 
and  maintained  by  the  Protestant  and  Roman  Catholic 
missions — the  former  the  only  stone  building  in  the 
protectorate.  At  the  summit  of  the  hill,  reached  by  a 
steeply  winding  carriage  road,  are  the  bungalows  of 
the  Europeans,  their  white  walls,  smothered  in  crim- 
son masses  of  bougainvillaea  and  shaded  by  stately 
palms  and  blazing  fire-trees,  peeping  out  from  a  wil- 
derness of  tropic  vegetation.  Viewed  from  the  har- 
bor, Sandakan  is  one  of  the  most  enchanting  places 
that  I  have  ever  seen.  It  looks  like  a  setting  on  a 
stage  and  you  have  the  feeling  that  at  any  moment 
the  curtain  may  descend  and  destroy  the  illusion.  It 
is  not  until  you  go  ashore  and  wander  in  the  native 


32  STRANGE  TRAILS 

quarter,  where  vice  in  every  form  stalks  naked  and 
unashamed,  that  you  realize  that  the  town  is  like  a 
beautiful  harlot,  whose  loveliness  of  face  and  figure 
belie  the  evil  in  her  heart.  Even  after  I  came  to 
understand  that  the  place  is  a  sink  of  iniquity,  I  never 
ceased  to  marvel  at  its  beauty.  It  reminded  me  of 
the  exclamation  of  a  young  English  girl,  the  wife  of  a 
German  merchant,  as  their  steamer  approached  Hong 
Kong  and  the  superb  panorama  which  culminates  in 
The  Peak  slowly  unrolled. 

"Look,  Otto!  Look!"  she  cried.  "You  must  say 
that  it  is  beautiful  even  if  it  is  English." 

Of  those  lands  which  have  not  yet  submitted  to  the 
bit  and  bridle  of  civilization — and  they  can  be  num- 
bered on  the  fingers  of  one's  two  hands — Borneo  is  the 
most  intractable.  Of  all  the  regions  which  the  preda- 
tory European  has  claimed  for  his  own,  it  is  the  least 
submissive,  the  least  civilized,  the  least  exploited  and 
the  least  known.  Its  interior  remains  as  untamed  as 
before  the  first  white  man  set  foot  on  its  shores  four 
hundred  years  ago.  The  exploits  of  those  bold  and 
hardy  spirits — explorers,  soldiers,  missionaries,  ad- 
ministrators— who  have  attempted  to  carry  to  the 
natives  of  Borneo  the  Gospel  of  the  Clean  Shirt  and 
the  Square  Deal  form  one  of  the  epics  of  coloniza- 
tion. They  have  died  with  their  boots  on  from  fever, 
plague  and  snake-bite,  from  poisoned  dart  and  Dyak 
spear.  Though  their  lives  would  yield  material  for  a 
hundred  books  of  adventure,  their  story,  which  is  the 


OUTPOSTS  OF  EMPIRE  33 

story  of  the  white  man's  war  for  civilization  through- 
out Malaysia,  is  epitomized  in  the  few  lines  graven 
on  the  modest  marble  monument  which  stands  at  the 
edge  of  Sandakan's  sun-scorched  parade  ground: 


In 

Memory 

of 

Francis  Xavier  Witti 

Killed  near  the  Sibuco  River 

May,  1882 

of 

Frank  Hatton 

Accidentally  shot  at  Segamah 
March,  1883 

of 
Dr.  D.  Manson  Fraser 

and 

Jemadhar  Asa  Singh 

the  two  latter  mortally  wounded  at  Kopang 
May,   1883 

and  of 

Alfred  Jones,   Adjutant 

Shere  Singh,  Regimental  Sergeant-Major 

of  the  British  North  Borneo  Constabulary 

Killed  at  Ranau  1897-98 

and  of 

George  Graham  Warder 

District  Officer,  Tindang  Batu 

Murdered  at  Marak  Parak 

a8th  July  1903 

This  Monument  Is  Erected  as  a  Mark  of  Respect 
by  their  Brother  Officers 


Though  Sandakan  is  the  chief  port  of  British  North 
Borneo,  with  a  population  of  perhaps  fifteen  thou- 
sand, it  has  barely  a  hundred  European  inhabitants, 
of  whom  only  a  dozen  are  women.  Girls  marry  al- 


34  STRANGE  TRAILS 

most  as  fast  as  they  arrive,  and  the  incoming  boats 
are  eagerly  scanned  by  the  bachelor  population,  much 
in  the  same  spirit  as  that  in  which  a  ticket-holder  scans 
the  lists  of  winning  numbers  in  a  lottery,  wondering 
when  his  turn  will  come  to  draw  something.  If  the 
bulk  of  the  men  are  confirmed  misogynists  and  confine 
themselves  to  the  club  bar  and  card-room  it  is  only 
because  there  are  not  enough  women  to  go  round. 
The  sacrifice  of  the  women  who,  in  order  to  be  near 
their  husbands,  consent  to  sicken  and  fade  and  grow 
old  before  their  time  in  such  a  spot,  is  very  great. 
With  their  children  at  school  in  England,  they  pass 
their  lonely  lives  in  palm-thatched  bungalows,  raised 
high  above  the  ground  on  piles  as  a  protection  against 
insects,  snakes  and  floods,  without  amusements  save 
such  as  they  can  provide  themselves,  and  in  a  climate 
so  humid  that  mushrooms  will  grow  on  one's  boots  in 
a  single  night  during  the  rains.  They  are  as  truly 
empire-builders  as  the  men  and,  though  the  parts  they 
play  are  less  conspicuous,  perhaps,  they  are  as  truly 
deserving  of  honors  and  rewards. 

There  is  no  servant  problem  in  Borneo.  Cooks 
jostle  one  another  to  cook  for  you.  They  will  even 
go  to  the  length  of  poisoning  each  other  in  order  to 
step  into  a  lucrative  position,  with  a  really  big  master 
and  a  memsahib  who  does  not  give  too  much  trouble. 
But  there  are  other  features  of  domestic  life  for  which 
the  plenitude  of  servants  does  not  compensate.  Be- 
cause existence  is  made  almost  unendurable  by  mos- 
quitoes and  other  insects,  within  each  sleeping  room  is 


OUTPOSTS  OF  EMPIRE  35 

constructed  a  rectangular  framework,  covered  with 
mosquito-netting  and  just  large  enough  to  contain  a 
bed,  a  dressing-table  and  an  arm-chair.  In  these 
insect-proof  cells  the  Europeans  spend  all  of  their 
sleeping  and  many  of  their  waking  hours.  So  aggres- 
sive are  the  mosquitoes,  particularly  during  the  rains, 
that,  when  one  invites  people  in  for  dinner  or  bridge, 
the  servants  hand  the  guests  long  sacks  of  netting 
which  are  drawn  over  the  feet  and  legs,  the  top  being 
tied  about  the  waist  with  a  draw-string.  Were  it  not 
for  these  mosquito-bags  there  would  be  neither  bridge 
nor  table  conversation.  Everyone  would  be  too  busy 
scratching. 

The  houses,  as  I  have  already  mentioned,  are  raised 
above  the  ground  on  brick  piles  or  wooden  stilts. 
Though  this  arrangement  serves  the  purpose  of  keep- 
ing things  which  creep  and  crawl  out  of  the  house 
itself,  the  custom  of  utilizing  the  open  space  beneath 
the  house  as  a  hen-roost  offers  a  standing  invitation  to 
the  reptiles  with  which  Borneo  abounds.  While  we 
were  in  Sandakan  a  python  invaded  the  chicken-house 
beneath  the  dwelling  of  the  local  magistrate  one  night 
and  devoured  half  a  dozen  of  the  judge's  imported 
Leghorns.  Gorged  to  repletion,  the  great  reptile  fell 
asleep,  being  discovered  by  the  servants  the  next  morn- 
ing. The  magistrate  put  an  end  to  its  predatory  career 
with  a  shot-gun.  It  measured  slightly  over  twenty 
feet  from  nose  to  tail  and  in  circumference  was  con- 
siderably larger  than  an  inflated  fire-hose.  Imagine 


36  STRANGE  TRAILS 

finding  such  a  thing  coiled  up  at  the  foot  of  your  cellar- 
stairs  after  you  had  been  indulging  in  home-brew  I 

One  evening  a  party  of  us  were  seated  on  the 
verandah  of  the  Planters  Club  in  Sandakan.  The  con- 
versation, which  had  pretty  much  covered  the  world, 
eventually  turned  to  snakes. 

"That  reminds  me,"  remarked  a  constabulary  of- 
ficer who  had  spent  many  years  in  Malaysia,  "of  a 
queer  thing  that  happened  in  a  place  where  I  was  sta- 
tioned once  in  the  Straits  Settlements.  It  was  one  of 
those  deadly  dull  places — only  a  handful  of  white 
women,  no  cinema,  no  race  course,  nothing.  But  the 
Devil,  you  know,  always  finds  mischief  for  idle  hands 
to  do.  One  day  a  youngster — a  subaltern  in  the  bat- 
talion that  was  stationed  there — returned  from  a 
leave  spent  in  England.  He  brought  back  with  him 
a  young  English  girl  whom  he  had  married  while  he 
was  at  home.  A  slender,  willowy  thing  she  was,  with 
great  masses  of  coppery-red  hair  and  the  loveliest  pink- 
and-white  complexion.  She  quickly  adapted  herself 
to  the  disagreeable  features  of  life  in  the  tropics — with 
one  exception.  The  exception  was  that  she  could  never 
overcome  her  inherent  and  unreasoning  fear  of  snakes. 
The  mere  sight  of  one  would  send  her  into  hysterics. 

"One  afternoon,  while  she  was  out  at  tea  with  some 
friends,  the  Malay  gardener  brought  to  the  house 
the  carcass  of  a  hamadryad  which  he  had  killed  in  the 
garden.  The  hamadryad,  as  you  probably  know,  is 
perhaps  the  deadliest  of  all  Eastern  reptiles.  Its  bite 
usually  causes  death  in  a  few  minutes.  Moreover,  it  is 


OUTPOSTS  OF  EMPIRE  37 

one  of  the  few  snakes  that  will  attack  human  beings 
without  provocation.  The  husband,  with  two  other 
chaps,  both  officers  in  his  battalion,  was  sitting  on  the 
verandah  when  the  snake  was  brought  in. 

'  'I  say,'  suggested  one  of  the  officers,  'here's  a 
chance  to  break  Madge  of  her  fear  of  snakes.  Why 
not  curl  this  fellow  up  on  her  bed?  She'll  get  a  jolly 
good  fright,  of  course,  but  when  she  discovers  that 
he's  dead  and  that  she's  been  panicky  about  nothing, 
she'll  get  over  her  silly  fear  of  the  beggars.  What 
say,  old  chap?' 

"To  this  insane  suggestion,  in  spite  of  the  protests 
of  the  other  officer,  the  husband  assented.  Probably 
he  had  been  having  too  many  brandies  and  sodas.  I 
don't  know.  But  in  any  event,  they  put  the  witless 
idea  into  execution.  Toward  nightfall  the  young  wife 
returned.  She  had  on  a  frock  of  some  thin,  slinky 
stuff  and  a  droopy  garden  hat  with  flowers  on  it  and 
carried  a  sunshade.  She  was  awfully  pretty.  She 
hadn't  been  out  there  long  enough  to  lose  her  English 
coloring,  you  see. 

"  'Oh,  I  say,  Madge,'  called  her  husband,  'There's 
a  surprise  for  you  in  your  bedroom.' 

"With  a  little  cry  of'delighted  anticipation  she  hur- 
ried into  the  house.  She  thought  her  husband  had 
bought  her  a  gift,  I  suppose.  A  moment  later  the 
trio  waiting  on  the  verandah  heard  a  piercing  shriek. 
The  first  shriek  was  followed  by  another  and  then 
another.  Pretty  soon,  though,  the  screams  died 
down  to  a  whimper — a  sort  of  sobbing  moan.  Then 


38  STRANGE  TRAILS 

silence.  After  a  few  minutes,  as  there  was  no  further 
sound  from  the  bedroom  and  his  wife  did  not  reap- 
pear, the  husband  became  uneasy.  He  rose  to  enter 
the  house,  but  the  chap  who  had  suggested  the  scheme 
pulled  him  back. 

"  'She's  all  right,'  he  assured  him.  'She  sees  it's  a 
joke  and  she's  keeping  quiet  so  as  to  frighten  you.  If 
you  go  in  there  now  the  laugh  will  be  on  you.  She'll 
be  out  directly.' 

"But  as  the  minutes  passed  and  she  did  not  reap- 
pear all  three  of  the  men  became  increasingly  uneasy. 

"  'We'd  better  have  a  look,'  the  one  who  had  de- 
murred suggested  after  a  quarter  of  an  hour  had 
passed,  during  which  no  further  sound  had  come  from 
the  bedroom.  'Madge  is  very  high-strung.  She  may 
have  fainted  from  the  shock.  I  told  you  fellows  that 
it  was  an  idiotic  thing  to  do.' 

"When  they  opened  the  door  they  thought  that  she 
had  fainted,  for  she  lay  in  an  inert  heap  on  the  floor 
at  the  foot  of  the  bed.  But  a  hasty  examination 
showed  them,  to  their  horror,  that  the  girl  was  dead 
— heart  failure,  presumably.  But  when  they  raised 
her  from  the  floor  they  discovered  the  real  cause  of 
her  death,  for  a  second  hamadryad,  which  had  been 
concealed  by  her  skirts,  darted  noiselessly  under  the 
bed.  It  was  the  mate  of  the  one  that  had  been  killed 
— for  hamadryads  always  travel  in  pairs,  you  know 
— and  had  evidently  entered  the  room  in  quest  of  its 
companion." 

"What  happened  to  the  husband  and  to  the  man 


OUTPOSTS  OF  EMPIRE  39 

who  suggested  the  plan?"  I  asked.     "Were  they  pun- 
ished?" 

"They  were  punished  right  enough,"  the  constabu- 
lary officer  said  dryly.  "The  chap  who  suggested  the 
scheme  tried  to  forget  it  in  drink,  was  cashiered  from 
the  army  and  died  of  delirium  tremens.  As  for  the 
husband,  he  is  still  living — in  a  madhouse." 

Even  in  so  far-distant  a  corner  of  the  Empire  as 
Borneo,  ten  thousand  miles  from  the  lights  of  the  res- 
taurants in  Piccadilly,  the  men  religiously  observe  the 
English  ritual  of  dressing  for  dinner,  for  when  the 
mercury  climbs  to  no,  though  the  temptation  is  to  go 
about  in  pajamas,  one's  drenched  body  and  drooping 
spirits  need  to  be  bolstered  up  with  a  stiff  shirt  and  a 
white  mess  jacket.  That  the  stiffest  shirt-front  is 
wilted  in  an  hour  makes  no  difference :  it  reminds  them 
that  they  are  still  Englishmen.  Nor,  in  view  of  the 
appalling  loneliness  of  the  life,  is  it  to  be  wondered 
at  that  the  Chinese  bartenders  at  the  club  are  kept 
busy  until  far  into  the  night,  and  that  every  month  or 
so  the  entire  male  white  population  goes  on  a  terrific 
spree.  The  government  doctor  in  Sandakan  assured 
me  very  earnestly  that,  in  order  to  stand  the  climate, 
it  is  necessary  to  keep  one's  liver  afloat — in  alcohol. 
He  had  contributed  to  thus  preserving  the  livers  and 
lives  of  his  fellow  exiles  by  the  invention  of  two 
drinks,  of  which  he  was  inordinately  proud.  One  he 
had  dubbed  "Tarantula  Juice;"  the  other  he  called 
"Whisper  of  Death."  He  told  me  that  the  amateur 


40  STRANGE  TRAILS 

who  took  three  drinks  of  the  latter  would  have  no 
further  need  for  his  services;  the  only  person  whose 
Cervices  he  would  require  would  be  the  undertaker. 

There  is  something  of  the  pathetic  in  the  eagerness 
with  which  the  white  men  who  dwell  in  exile  along 
these  forgotten  seaboards  long  for  news  from  Home. 
After  dinner  they  would  cluster  about  me  on  the  club 
verandah  and  clamor  for  those  odds-and-ends  of 
English  gossip  which  are  not  important  enough  for  in- 
clusion in  the  laconic  cable  despatches  posted  daily  on 
the  club  bulletin-board  and  which  the  two-months-old 
newspapers  seldom  mention.  They  insisted  that 
I  repeat  the  jokes  which  were  being  cracked  by 
the  comedians  at  the  Criterion  and  the  Shaftes- 
bury.  They  wanted  to  know  if  toppers  and  tail- 
coats were  again  being  worn  in  The  Row.  They 
pleaded  for  the  gossip  of  the  clubs  in  Pall  Mall  and 
Piccadilly.  They  begged  me  to  tell  them  about  the 
latest  books  and  plays  and  songs.  But  after  a  time  I 
persuaded  them  to  do  the  talking,  while  I  lounged  in 
a  deep  cane  chair,  a  tall,  thin  glass,  with  ice  tinkling  in 
it,  at  my  elbow,  and  listened  spellbound  to  strange 
dramas  of  "the  Islands"  recited  by  men  who  had  them- 
selves played  the  leading  roles.  At  first  they  were 
shy,  as  well-bred  English  often  are,  but  after  much 
urging  an  officer  of  constabulary,  the  glow  from  his 
cigar  lighting  up  his  sun-bronzed  face  and  the  rows  of 
campaign  ribbons  on  his  white  jacket,  was  persuaded 
into  telling  how  he  had  trailed  a  marauding  band  of 
head-hunters  right  across  Borneo,  from  coast  to  coast, 


OUTPOSTS  OF  EMPIRE  41 

his  only  companions  a  handful  of  Dyak  police,  them- 
selves but  a  degree  removed  in  savagery  from  those 
they  were  pursuing.  A  bespectacled,  studious-looking 
man,  whom  I  had  taken  for  a  scientist  or  a  college 
professor,  but  who,  I  learned,  had  made  a  fortune 
buying  bird-of-paradise  plumes  for  the  European  mar- 
ket, described  the  strange  and  revolting  customs  prac- 
tised by  the  cannibals  of  New  Guinea.  Then  a  broad- 
shouldered,  bearded  Dutchman,  a  very  Hercules  of  a 
man,  with  a  voice  like  a  bass  drum,  told,  between 
meditative  puffs  at  his  pipe,  of  hair-raising  adventures 
in  capturing  wild  animals,  so  that  those  smug  and  shel- 
tered folk  at  home  who  visit  the  zoological  gardens  of 
a  Sunday  afternoon  might  see  for  themselves  the  croco- 
dile and  the  boa-constrictor,  the  orang-utan  and  the 
clouded  tiger.  When,  after  the  last  tale  had  been  told 
and  the  last  glass  had  been  drained,  we  strolled  out 
into  the  fragrant  tropic  night,  with  the  Cross  swing- 
ing low  to  the  morn,  I  felt  as  though,  in  the  space  of 
a  single  evening,  I  had  lived  through  a  whole  library 
of  adventure. 

I  once  wrote — in  The  Last  Frontier,  if  I  remember 
rightly — that  when  the  English  occupy  a  country  the 
first  thing  they  build  is  a  custom-house ;  the  first  thing 
the  Germans  build  is  a  barracks;  the  first  thing  the 
French  build  is  a  railway.  As  a  result  of  my  observa- 
tions in  Malaysia,  however,  I  am  inclined  to  amend 
this  by  saying  that  the  first  thing  the  English  build  is 
a  race  course.  Lord  Cromer  was  fond  of  telling  how, 


42  STRANGE  TRAILS 

when  he  visited  Perim,  a  miserable  little  island  at  the 
foot  of  the  Red  Sea,  inhabited  by  a  few  Arabs  and 
many  snakes,  his  guide  took  him  to  the  top  of  a  hill 
and  pointed  out  the  race  course. 

"But  what  do  you  want  with  a  race  course?"  de- 
manded the  great  proconsul.  "I  didn't  suppose  that 
there  was  a  four-footed  animal  on  the  island." 

The  guide  reluctantly  admitted  that,  though  they 
had  no  horses  on  the  island  at  the  moment,  if  some 
were  to  come,  why,  there  was  the  race  course  ready 
for  them.  Though  I  don't  recall  having  seen  more 
than  a  dozen  horses  in  Borneo,  the  British  have  been 
true  to  their  traditions  by  building  two  race  courses: 
one  at  Sandakan  and  one  at  Jesselton.  On  the  latter 
is  run  annually  the  North  Borneo  Derby.  It  is  the 
most  brilliant  sporting  and  social  event  of  the  year,  the 
Europeans  flocking  into  Jesselton  from  the  little  trad- 
ing stations  along  the  coast  and  from  the  lonely  plan- 
tations in  the  interior  just  as  their  friends  back  in 
England  flock  to  Goodwood  and  Newmarket  and 
Epsom.  The  Derby  is  always  followed  by  the  Hunt 
Ball.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  there  are  at  least 
twenty  men  to  every  woman  this  is  always  a  tremen- 
dous success.  It  usually  ends  in  everyone  getting 
gloriously  drunk. 

Almost  the  only  other  form  of  entertainment  is 
provided  by  a  company  of  Malay  players  which  makes 
periodical  visits  to  Sandakan  and  Jesselton.  Though 
the  actors  speak  only  Malay,  this  does  not  deter  them 
from  including  a  number  of  Shakesperian  plays  in  their 


OUTPOSTS  OF  EMPIRE  43 

repertoire  (imagine  Macbeth  being  played  by  a  com- 
pany of  piratical-looking  Malays  in  a  nipa  hut  on  the 
shores  of  the  Sulu  Sea!)  but  they  attain  their  greatest 
heights  in  AH  Baba  and  the  Forty  Thieves.  There  are 
no  programmes,  but,  in  order  that  the  audience  may  not 
be  left  in  doubt  as  to  the  identity  of  the  players,  the 
manager  introduces  the  members  of  his  company  one 
by  one.  "This  is  AH  Baba,"  he  announces,  leading  a 
fat  and  greasy  Oriental  to  the  footlights.  "This  is 
Fatimah."  "These  are  the  Forty  Thieves."  When 
the  latter  announcement  is  made  four  actors  stalk  ten 
times  across  the  stage  in  naive  simulation  of  the  speci- 
fied number.  After  the  thieves  have  concealed  them- 
selves behind  pasteboard  silhouettes  of  jars,  Ali  Baba's 
wife  waddles  on  the  stage  bearing  a  Standard  Oil  tin 
on  her  shoulder  and  with  a  dipper  proceeds  to  ladle  a 
few  drops  of  cocoanut  oil  on  the  head  of  each  of  the 
robbers.  While  she  is  being  introduced  one  of  the 
thieves  seizes  the  opportunity  to  take  a  few  whiffs  from 
a  cigarette,  the  smoke  being  plainly  visible  to  the 
audience.  Another,  wearying  of  his  cramped  position, 
incautiously  shows  his  head,  whereupon  Mrs.  Ali  Baba 
raps  it  sharply  with  her  dipper,  eliciting  from  the  actor 
an  exclamation  not  in  his  lines.  During  the  intermis- 
sions the  clown  who  accompanies  the  troupe  convulses 
the  audience  with  side-splitting  imitations  of  the  pom- 
pous and  frigid  Governor,  who,  as  someone  unkindly 
remarked,  "must  have  been  born  in  an  ice-chest,"  and 
of  the  bemoustached  and  bemonocled  officer  who  com- 
mands the  constabulary,  locally  referred  to  as  the 


44  STRANGE  TRAILS 

Galloping  Major.  Compared  with  the  antics  of  these 
Malay  comedians,  the  efforts  of  our  own  professional 
laugh-makers  seem  dull  and  forced.  Until  you  have 
seen  them  you  have  never  really  laughed. 

His  Highness  Haji  Mohamed  Jamalulhiram,  Sul- 
tan of  Sulu,  was  temporarily  sojourning  in  Sandakan 
when  we  were  there,  having  come  across  from  his 
capital  of  Jolo  for  the  purpose  of  collecting  the 
monthly  subsidy  of  five  hundred  pesos  paid  him  by  the 
British  North  Borneo  Company  for  certain  territorial 
concessions.  The  company  would  have  sent  the  money 
to  Jolo,  of  course,  but  the  Sultan  preferred  to  come  to 
Sandakan  to  collect  it;  there  are  better  facilities  for 
gambling  there. 

Because  I  was  curious  to  see  the  picturesque  per- 
sonage around  whom  George  Ade  wrote  his  famous 
opera,  The  Sultan  of  Sulu,  and  because  the  Lovely 
Lady  and  the  Winsome  Widow  had  read  in  a  Sun- 
day supplement  that  he  made  it  a  practise  to  present 
those  American  women  whom  he  met  with  pearls  of 
great  price,  upon  our  arrival  at  Sandakan  I  invited  the 
Sultan  to  dinner  aboard  the  Negros.  When  I  called 
on  him  at  his  hotel  to  extend  the  invitation,  I  found 
him  clad  in  a  very  soiled  pink  kimono,  a  pair  of  red 
velvet  slippers,  and  a  smile  made  somewhat  gory  by 
the  betel-nut  he  had  been  chewing,  but  when  he  came 
aboard  the  Negros  that  evening  he  wore  a  red  fez  and 
irreproachable  dinner  clothes  of  white  linen.  As  the 
crew  of  the  cutter  was  entirely  composed  of  Tagalogs 


OUTPOSTS  OF  EMPIRE  45 

and  Visayans,  from  the  northern  Philippines,  who, 
being  Christians,  regard  the  Mohammedan  Moro  with 
contempt,  not  unmixed  with  fear,  when  I  called  for 
side-boys  to  line  the  starboard  rail  when  his  High- 
ness came  aboard,  there  were  distinctly  mutinous 
mutterings.  Captain  Galvez  tactfully  settled  the  mat- 
ter, however,  by  explaining  to  the  crew  that  the  Sul- 
tan was,  after  all,  an  American  subject,  which  seemed 
to  mollify,  even  if  it  did  not  entirely  satisfy  them. 
The  armament  of  the  Negros  had  been  removed  after 
the  armistice,  so  that  we  were  without  anything  in  the 
nature  of  a  saluting  cannon,  but,  as  we  wished  to 
observe  all  the  formalities  of  naval  etiquette,  the  Doc- 
tor and  Hawkinson  volunteered  to  fire  a  royal  salute 
with  their  automatic  pistols  as  the  Sultan  came  over 
the  side.  That,  in  their  enthusiasm,  they  lost  count 
and  gave  him  about  double  the  number  of  "guns" 
prescribed  for  the  President  of  the  United  States 
caused  Haji  Mohamed  no  embarrassment;  on  the  con- 
trary, it  seemed  to  please  him  immensely.  (Donald 
Thompson,  who  was  my  photographer  in  Belgium 
during  the  early  days  of  the  war,  always  made  it  a 
point  to  address  every  officer  he  met  as  "General." 
He  explained  that  it  never  did  any  harm  and  that  it 
always  put  the  officer  in  good  humor.) 

When  the  cocktails  were  served  the  Sultan  gravely 
explained  through  the  interpreter  that,  being  a  devout 
Mohammedan  and  a  Haji,  he  never  permitted  alcohol 
to  pass  his  lips,  an  assertion  which  he  promptly  pro- 
ceeded to  prove  by  taking  four  Martinis  in  rapid  sue- 


46  STRANGE  TRAILS 

cession.  Now  the  chef  of  the  Negros  possessed  the 
faculty  of  camouflaging  his  dishes  so  successfully  that 
neither  by  taste,  looks  nor  smell  could  one  tell  with 
certainty  what  one  was  eating.  So,  when  the  meat, 
smothered  in  thick  brown  gravy,  was  passed  to  the 
Sultan,  his  Highness,  who,  like  all  True  Believers, 
abhors  pork,  regarded  it  dubiously.  "Pig?"  he  de- 
manded of  the  steward.  "No,  sare,"  was  the  fright- 
ened answer.  "Cow." 

Over  the  coffee  and  cigarettes  the  Lovely  Lady  and 
the  Winsome  Widow  tactfully  led  the  conversation 
around  to  the  subject  of  pearls,  whereupon  the  Sultan 
thrust  his  hand  into  his  pocket  and  produced  a  round 
pink  box,  evidently  originally  intended  for  pills.  Re- 
moving the  lid,  he  displayed,  imbedded  in  cotton,  half 
a  dozen  pearls  of  a  size  and  quality  such  as  one  seldom 
sees  outside  the  window  of  a  Fifth  Avenue  jeweler.  I 
could  see  that  the  Lovely  Lady  and  the  Winsome 
Widow  were  mentally  debating  as  to  whether  they 
would  have  them  set  in  brooches  or  rings.  But  when 
they  had  been  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  accompanied 
by  the  customary  exclamations  of  envy  and  admiration, 
back  they  went  into  the  royal  pocket  again.  "And  to 
think,"  one  of  the  party  remarked  afterward,  "that 
we  wasted  two  bottles  of  perfectly  good  gin  and  a 
bottle  of  vermouth  on  him  1" 

It  was  after  midnight  when  our  guest  took  his 
departure,  the  ship's  orchestra  playing  him  over  the 
side  with  a  selection  from  The  Sultan  of  Sulu,  which, 
in  view  of  my  ignorance  as  to  whether  Sulu  possessed 


OUTPOSTS  OF  EMPIRE  47 

a  national  anthem,  seemed  highly  appropriate  to  the 
occasion.  As  the  launch  bearing  the  Sultan  shot  shore- 
ward Hawkinson  set  off  a  couple  of  magnesium  flares, 
which  he  had  brought  along  for  the  purpose  of  taking 
pictures  at  night,  making  the  whole  harbor  of  Sanda- 
kan  as  bright  as  day.  I  heard  afterward  that  the 
Sultan  remarked  that  we  were  the  only  visitors  since 
the  Taft  party  who  really  appreciated  his  importance. 

Two  hours  steam  off  the  towering  promontory 
which  guards  the  entrance  to  Sandakan  harbor  lies 
Baguian,  a  sandy  islet  covered  with  cocoanut-palms, 
which  is  so  small  that  it  is  not  shown  on  ordinary 
maps.  Though  the  island  is,  for  some  unexplained 
reason,  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  British  North 
Borneo  Company,  it  is  a  part  of  the  Sulu  Archipelago 
and  belongs  to  the  United  States.  Baguian  is  famed 
throughout  those  seas  as  a  rookery  for  the  giant  tor- 
toise— testudo  elephantopus.  Toward  nightfall  the 
mammoth  chelonians — some  of  them  weigh  upward 
of  half  a  ton — come  ashore  in  great  numbers  to  lay 
their  eggs  in  nests  made  in  the  edge  of  the  jungle 
which  fringes  the  beach,  the  old  Chinaman  and  his 
two  assistants,  who  are  the  only  inhabitants  of  the 
island,  frequently  collecting  as  many  as  four  thousand 
eggs  in  a  single  morning.  The  eggs,  which  in  size  and 
color  exactly  resemble  ping-pong  balls  and  are  almost 
as  unbreakable,  are  collected  once  a  fortnight  by  a 
junk  which  takes  them  to  China,  where  they  are  con- 
sidered great  delicacies  and  command  high  prices.  As 


48  STRANGE  TRAILS 

we  had  brought  with  us  a  supply  of  magnesium  flares 
for  night  photography,  we  decided  to  take  the  camera 
ashore  and  attempt  to  obtain  pictures  of  the  turtles 
on  their  nests. 

As  we  were  going  ashore  in  the  gig  we  caught  sight 
of  a  huge  bull,  as  large  as  a  hogshead,  which  was 
floating  on  the  surface.  Ordering  the  sailors  to  row 
quietly,  we  succeeded  in  getting  within  a  hundred 
yards  before  I  let  go  with  my  .405,  the  soft-nosed 
bullet  tearing  a  great  hole  in  the  turtle's  neck  and 
dyeing  the  water  scarlet.  Almost  before  the  sound  of 
the  shot  had  died  away  one  of  the  Filipino  boat's 
crew  went  overboard  with  a  rope,  which  he  attempted 
to  attach  to  the  monster  before  it  could  sink  to  the 
bottom,  but  the  turtle,  though  desperately  wounded, 
was  still  very  much  alive,  giving  the  sailor  a  blow  on 
his  head  with  its  flapper  which  all  but  knocked  him 
senseless.  By  the  time  we  had  hauled  the  man  into 
the  boat  the  turtle  had  disappeared  into  the  depths. 

Waiting  until  darkness  had  fallen,  we  sent  parties 
of  sailors,  armed  with  electric  torches,  along  the  beach 
in  both  directions  with  orders  to  follow  the  tracks 
made  by  the  turtles  in  crossing  the  sand,  and  to  notify 
us  by  firing  a  revolver  when  they  located  one.  We  did 
not  have  long  to  wait  before  we  heard  the  signal 
agreed  upon,  and,  picking  up  the  heavy  camera,  we 
plunged  across  the  sands  to  where  the  sailors  were 
awaiting  us  in  the  edge  of  the  bush.  While  the  blue- 
jackets cut  off  the  retreat  of  the  hissing,  snapping 
monster,  Hawkinson  set  up  his  camera  and,  when  all 


OUTPOSTS  OF  EMPIRE  49 

was  ready,  some  one  touched  off  a  flare,  illuminating 
the  beach  and  jungle  as  though  the  search-light  of  a 
warship  had  been  turned  upon  them.  In  this  manner 
we  obtained  a  series  of  motion-pictures  which  are,  I 
believe,  from  the  zoological  standpoint,  unique.  Be- 
fore leaving  the  island  we  killed  two  tortoises  for  food 
for  the  crew — enough  to  keep  them  in  turtle  soup  for 
a  month.  The  larger,  which  I  shot  with  a  revolver, 
weighed  slightly  over  five  hundred  pounds  and  lived 
for  several  days  with  three  .45  caliber  bullets  in  its 
brain-pan.  Everything  considered,  it  was  a  very  in- 
teresting expedition.  The  only  person  who  did  not 
enjoy  it  was  the  old  Chinese  who  held  the  concession 
for  collecting  the  turtle-eggs.  Instead  of  recognizing 
the  great  value  of  the  service  we  were  rendering  to 
science,  he  acted  as  though  we  were  robbing  his  hen- 
roost. He  had  a  sordid  mind. 


CHAPTER  III 

"WHERE  THERE  AIN'T  NO  TEN  COMMANDMENTS" 

UNTIL  I  went  to  British  North  Borneo  I  had  con- 
sidered the  British  the  best  colonial  administrators 
in  the  world.  And,  generally  speaking,  I  hold  to  that 
opinion.  But  what  I  saw  and  heard  in  that  remote 
and  neglected  corner  of  the  Empire  disclosed  a  state 
of  affairs  which  I  had  not  dreamed  could  exist  in  any 
land  over  which  flies  the  British  flag.  It  was  not  the 
iniquitous  character  of  the  administration  which  sur- 
prised me,  for  I  had  seen  the  effects  of  bad  colonial 
administration  in  other  distant  lands — in  Mozam- 
bique, for  example,  and  in  Germany's  former  African 
possessions — but  rather  that  such  an  administration 
should  be  carried  on  by  Englishmen,  by  Anglo-Saxons. 
Were  you  to  read  in  your  morning  paper  that  an  ignor- 
ant alien  had  been  arrested  for  brutally  mistreating 
one  of  his  children  you  would  not  be  particularly  sur- 
prised, because  that  is  the  sort  of  thing  that  might  be 
expected  from  such  a  man.  But  were  you  to  read  that 
a  neighbor,  a  man  who  went  to  the  same  church  and 
belonged  to  the  same  clubs,  whom  you  had  known  and 
respected  all  your  life,  had  been  arrested  for  mistreat- 
ing one  of  his  children,  you  would  be  shocked  and 
horrified. 

50 


"NO  TEN  COMMANDMENTS"          51 

Save  on  the  charge  of  indifference  and  neglect, 
neither  the  British  people  nor  the  British  government 
can  be  held  responsible  for  the  conditions  existing  in 
North  Borneo,  for  strictly  speaking,  the  country  is  not 
a  British  colony,  but  merely  a  British  protectorate, 
being  owned  and  administered  by  a  private  trading 
corporation,  the  British  North  Borneo  Company, 
which  operates  under  a  royal  charter.  But  the  idea 
of  turning  over  a  great  block  of  territory,  with  its 
inhabitants,  to  a  corporation  whose  sole  aim  is  to  earn 
dividends  for  its  absentee  stockholders,  is  in  itself 
abhorrent  to  most  Americans.  What  would  we  say, 
I  ask  you,  if  Porto  Rico,  which  is  only  one-tenth  the 
size  of  North  Borneo,  were  to  be  handed  over,  lock, 
stock  and  barrel,  to  the  Standard  Oil  Company,  with 
full  authorization  for  that  company  to  make  its  own 
laws,  establish  its  own  courts,  appoint  its  own  officials, 
maintain  its  own  army,  and  to  wield  the  power  of  life 
and  death  over  the  natives?  And,  conceiving  such  a 
condition,  what  would  we  say  if  the  Standard  Oil 
Company,  in  order  to  swell  its  revenues,  not  only  per- 
mitted but  officially  encouraged  opium  smoking  and 
gambling;  if,  in  order  to  obtain  labor  for  its  planta- 
tions, it  imported  large  numbers  of  ignorant  blacks 
from  Haiti  and  permitted  the  planters  to  hold  those 
laborers,  through  indenture  and  indebtedness,  in  a 
form  of  servitude  not  far  removed  from  slavery;  if  it 
authorized  the  punishment  of  recalcitrant  laborers  by 
flogging  with  the  cat-o'nine-tails ;  if  it  denied  to  the 
natives  as  well  as  to  the  imported  laborers  a  system 


52  STRANGE  TRAILS 

of  public  education  or  a  public  health  service  or  trial 
by  jury;  and  finally,  if,  in  the  event  of  insurrection, 
it  permitted  its  soldiery,  largely  recruited  from  savage 
tribes,  to  decapitate  their  prisoners  and  to  bring  their 
ghastly  trophies  into  the  capital  and  pile  them  in  a 
pyramid  in  the  principal  plaza?  Yet  that  would  be  a 
fairly  close  parallel  to  what  the  chartered  company  is 
doing  in  British  North  Borneo.  As  I  have  already 
remarked,  North  Borneo  is  a  British  protectorate. 
And  it  is  in  more  urgent  need  of  protection  from  those 
who  are  exploiting  it  than  any  country  I  know.  But 
the  voices  of  the  natives  are  very  weak  and  West- 
minster is  far  away. 

With  the  exception  of  Rhodesia,  and  of  certain  ter- 
ritories in  Portuguese  Africa,  North  Borneo  is  the 
sole  remaining  region  in  the  world  which  is  owned  and 
administered  by  that  political  anachronism,  a  char- 
tered company.  It  was  in  the  age  of  Elizabeth  that 
the  chartered  company,  in  the  modern  sense  of  the 
term,  had  its  rise.  The  discovery  of  the  New  World 
and  the  opening  out  of  fresh  trading  routes  to  the 
Indies  gave  a  tremendous  impetus  to  shipping,  com- 
mercial and  industrial  enterprises  throughout  western 
Europe  and  it  was  in  order  to  encourage  these  enter- 
prises that  the  British,  Dutch  and  French  governments 
granted  charters  to  various  trading  associations.  It 
was  the  Russia  Company,  for  example,  which  received 
its  first  charter  in  1554,  which  first  brought  England 
into  intercourse  with  an  empire  then  unknown.  The 
Turkey  Company — later  known  as  the  Levant  Com- 


"NO  TEN  COMMANDMENTS"          53 

pany — long  maintained  British  prestige  in  the  Otto- 
man Empire  and  even  paid  the  expenses  of  the  embas- 
sies sent  out  by  the  British  Government  to  the  Sublime 
Porte.  The  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  which  still  exists 
as  a  purely  commercial  concern,  was  for  nearly  two 
centuries  the  undisputed  ruler  of  western  Canada. 
The  extraordinary  and  picturesque  career  of  the  East 
India  Company  is  too  well  known  to  require  com- 
ment here.  In  fact,  most  of  the  thirteen  British  colo- 
nies in  North  America  were  in  their  inception  char- 
tered companies  very  much  in  the  modern  acceptation 
of  the  term.  But,  though  these  companies  contributed 
in  no  small  degree  to  the  commercial  progress  of  the 
states  from  which  they  held  their  charters,  though 
they  gave  colonies  to  the  mother  countries  and  an 
impetus  to  the  development  of  their  fleets,  they  were 
all  too  often  characterized  by  misgovernment,  incom- 
petence, injustice  and  cruelty  in  their  dealings  with 
the  natives.  Moreover,  they  were  monopolies,  and 
therefore,  obnoxious,  and  almost  without  exception  the 
colonies  they  founded  became  prosperous  and  well- 
governed  only  when  they  had  escaped  from  their  yoke. 
The  existence  of  such  companies  today  is  justified — if 
at  all — only  by  certain  political  and  economic  reasons. 
It  may  be  desirable  for  a  government  to  occupy  a 
certain  territory,  but  political  exigencies  at  home  may 
not  permit  it  to  incur  the  expense,  or  international 
relations  may  make  such  an  adventure  inexpedient  at 
the  time.  In  such  circumstances,  the  formation  of  a 
chartered  company  to  take  over  the  desired  territory 


54  STRANGE  TRAILS 

may  be  the  easiest  way  out  of  the  difficulty.  But  it 
has  been  demonstrated  again  and  again  that  a  char- 
tered company  can  never  be  anything  but  a  transition 
stage  of  colonization  and  that  sooner  or  later  the 
home  government  must  take  over  its  powers  and 
privileges. 

The  story  of  the  rise  of  the  British  North  Borneo 
Company  provides  an  illuminating  insight  into  the 
methods  by  which  that  Empire  On  Which  the  Sun 
Never  Sets  has  acquired  many  of  its  far-flung  pos- 
sessions. Though  the  British  had  established  trading 
posts  in  northern  Borneo  as  early  as  1759,  and  had 
obtained  the  cession  of  the  whole  northeastern  pro- 
montory from  the  Sultan  of  Sulu,  who  was  its  suzerain, 
the  hostility  of  the  natives,  who  resented  their  transfer 
to  alien  rule,  was  so  pronounced  that  the  treaty  soon 
became  virtually  a  dead  letter  and  by  the  end  of  the 
century  British  influence  in  Borneo  was  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  at  an  end.  Nor  was  it  resumed  until 
1838,  when  an  adventurous  Englishman,  James 
Brooke,  landed  at  Kuching  and  eventually  made  him- 
self the  "White  Rajah"  of  Sarawak.  In  1848  the 
island  of  Labuan,  off  the  northwestern  coast  of  Bor- 
neo, was  occupied  by  the  British  as  a  crown  colony 
and  some  years  later  the  Labuan  Trading  Company 
established  a  trading  post  at  Sandakan.  In  an  at- 
tempt to  open  up  the  country  and  to  start  plantations 
the  company  imported  a  considerable  number  of 
Chinese  laborers,  but  it  did  not  prosper  and  its  finan- 
cial affairs  steadily  went  from  bad  to  worse.  As 


"NO  TEN  COMMANDMENTS"          55 

long  as  the  company  kept  its  representative  in  Sanda- 
kan  supplied  with  funds  he  managed  to  maintain  a 
certain  authority  among  the  natives.  But  one  day  he 
received  a  letter  bearing  the  London  postmark  from 
the  company's  chairman.  It  read: 

"Sir:  We  are  sorry  to  inform  you  that  we  cannot 
send  you  further  funds,  but  you  should  not  let  this 
prevent  you  from  keeping  up  your  dignity." 

To  which  the  agent  replied : 

"Sir:  I  have  on  a  pair  of  trousers  and  a  flannel 
shirt — all  I  possess  in  the  world.  I  think  my  dignity 
is  about  played  out." 

Another  syndicate  for  the  exploitation  of  North 
Borneo  was  formed  in  England  in  1878,  however,  to 
which  the  Sultan  of  Sulu  was  induced  to  transfer  all 
his  rights  in  that  region,  of  which  he  had  been  from 
time  immemorial  the  overlord.  Four  years  later  this 
syndicate,  now  known  as  the  British  North  Borneo 
Company,  took  over  all  the  sovereign  and  diplo- 
matic rights  ceded  by  the  original  grants  and  pro- 
ceeded to  organize  and  administer  the  territory.  In 
1886  North  Borneo  was  made  a  British  protectorate, 
but  its  administration  remained  entirely  in  the  hands 
of  the  company,  the  Crown  reserving  only  control  of 
its  foreign  relations,  though  it  was  also  agreed  that 
governors  appointed  by  the  company  should  receive 
the  formal  sanction  of  the  British  Colonial  Secretary. 
To  quote  the  chairman  of  the  board  of  directors :  "We 
are  not  a  trading  company.  We  are  a  government, 


56  STRANGE  TRAILS 

an   administration.     The    Colonial   Office   leaves   us 
alone  as  long  as  we  behave  ourselves." 

The  government  is  vested  primarily  in  a  board  of 
directors  who  sit  in  London  and  few  of  whom  have 
ever  set  foot  in  the  country  which  they  rule.  The 
supreme  authority  in  Borneo  is  the  governor,  under 
whom  are  the  residents  of  the  three  chief  districts,  who 
occupy  positions  analogous  to  that  of  collector  or 
magistrate.  The  six  less  important  districts  are  ad- 
ministered by  district  magistrates,  who  also  collect  the 
taxes.  Though  there  is  a  council,  upon  which  the 
principal  heads  of  departments  and  one  unofficial  mem- 
ber have  seats,  it  meets  irregularly  and  its  functions 
are  largely  ornamental,  the  governor  exercising  vir- 
tually autocratic  power.  Unfortunately,  there  is  no 
imperial  official,  as  in  Rhodesia,  to  supervise  the  com- 
pany's activities.  As  was  the  case  with  the  East  India 
Company,  the  minor  posts  in  the  North  Borneo  serv- 
ice are  filled  by  cadets  nominated  by  the  board  of 
directors,  a  system  which  provides  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  positions  for  younger  sons,  poor  relations  and 
titled  ne'er-do-wells.  Most  of  the  officials  go  out  to 
Borneo  as  cadets,  serve  a  long  and  arduous  appren- 
ticeship in  one  of  the  most  trying  climates  in  the  world, 
are  miserably  paid  (I  knew  one  official  who  held  five 
posts  at  the  same  time,  including  those  of  assistant 
magistrate  and  assistant  protector  of  labor  and  who 
received  for  his  services  the  equivalent  of  $100.  a 
month),  and  eventually  retire,  broken  in  health,  on  a 
pension  which  permits  them  to  live  in  a  Bloomsbury 


"NO  TEN  COMMANDMENTS"          57 

lodging-house,  to  ride  on  a  tuppenny'bus,  and  to  occa- 
sionally visit  the  cinema. 

There  is  no  trial  by  jury  in  North  Borneo,  all  cases 
being  decided  by  the  magistrates,  who  are  appointed 
by  the  company  and  who  must  be  qualified  barristers. 
Nor  are  there  mixed  courts,  as  in  Egypt  and  other 
Oriental  countries,  though  in  the  more  important  cases 
five  or  six  assessors,  either  native  or  Chinese,  accord- 
ing to  the  nationality  of  those  involved,  are  permitted 
to  listen  to  the  evidence  and  to  submit  recommenda- 
tions, which  the  magistrate  may  follow  or  not,  as  he 
sees  fit.  Neither  is  there  a  court  of  appeal,  the  only 
recourse  from  the  decision  of  a  magistrate  being  an 
appeal  to  the  governor,  whose  decision  is  final. 

The  country  is  policed  by  a  force  of  constabulary 
numbering  some  six  hundred  men,  comprising  Sikhs, 
Pathans,  Punjabi  Mohammedans,  Malays,  and  Dyaks, 
officered  by  a  handful  of  Europeans.  Curiously 
enough,  the  tall,  dignified,  deeply  religious  Sikhs  and 
the  little,  nervous,  high-strung  Dyak  pagans  get  on 
very  well  together,  eating,  sleeping  and  drilling  in 
perfect  harmony.  Though  the  Dyak  members  of  the 
constabulary  are  recruited  from  the  wild  tribes  of  the 
interior,  most  of  them  having  indulged  in  the  national 
pastime  of  head-hunting  until  they  donned  the  com- 
pany's uniform,  they  make  excellent  soldiers,  courage- 
ous, untiring,  and  remarkably  loyal.  Upon  King 
Edward's  accession  to  the  throne  a  small  contingent 
of  Dyak  police  was  sent  to  England  to  march  in  the 
coronation  procession.  When,  owing  to  the  serious 


58  STRANGE  TRAILS 

illness  of  the  king,  the  coronation  was  indefinitely 
postponed  and  it  was  proposed  to  send  the  Dyaks 
home,  the  little  brown  fighters  stubbornly  refused  to 
go,  asserting  that  they  would  not  dare  to  show  their 
faces  in  Borneo  without  having  seen  the  king.  They 
did  not  wish  to  put  the  company  to  any  expense,  they 
explained,  so  they  would  give  up  their  uniforms  and 
live  in  the  woods  on  what  they  could  pick  up  if  they 
were  permitted  to  remain  until  they  could  see  their 
ruler. 

Though  the  Dyaks  make  excellent  soldiers,  as  I 
have  said,  they  are  always  savages  at  heart.  In  fact, 
when  they  are  used  in  operations  against  rebellious 
natives,  their  officers  permit  and  sometimes  actively 
encourage  their  relapse  into  the  barbarous  custom  of 
taking  heads.  An  official  who  was  stationed  in  San- 
dakan  during  the  insurrection  of  1908  told  me  that 
for  days  the  police  came  swaggering  into  town  with 
dripping  heads  hanging  from  their  belts  and  that  they 
piled  these  grisly  trophies  in  a  pyramid  eight  feet  high 
on  the  parade  ground  in  front  of  the  government 
buildings.  Imagine,  if  you  please,  the  storm  of  indig- 
nation and  disgust  which  would  have  swept  the  United 
States  had  American  officers  permitted  the  Maccabebe 
Scouts,  who  served  with  our  troops  against  the  in- 
surgents in  the  Aguinaldo  insurrection,  to  decapitate 
their  Filipino  prisoners  and  to  bring  the  heads  into 
Manila  and  pile  them  in  a  pyramid  on  the  Luneta  I 

Though  the  term  Dyak  is  often  carelessly  applied 
to  all  the  natives  of  North  Borneo,  as  a  matter  of 


"NO  TEN  COMMANDMENTS"          59 

fact  the  Dyaks  form  only  a  small  minority  of  the 
population,  the  bulk  of  the  inhabitants  being  Bajows, 
Dusuns  and  Muruts.  The  Bajows,  who  are  Mo- 
hammedans and  first  cousins  of  the  Moros  of  the 
southern  Philippines,  are  found  mainly  along  the  east 
coast  of  Borneo.  They  are  a  dark-skinned,  wild,  sea- 
gipsy  race,  rovers,  smugglers  and  river  thieves. 
Though,  thanks  to  the  stern  measures  adopted  by  the 
British  and  the  Americans,  they  no  longer  indulge  in 
piracy,  which  was  long  their  favorite  occupation,  they 
still  find  profit  and  excitement  in  running  arms  and 
opium  across  the  Sulu  Sea  to  the  Moro  Islands,  in 
attacking  lonely  light-houses,  or  in  looting  stranded 
merchantmen.  It  is  the  last  coast  in  the  world  that  I 
would  choose  to  be  shipwrecked  on. 

The  Dusuns  and  the  Muruts,  who  are  generally 
found  in  widely  scattered  villages  in  the  jungles  of 
the  interior,  represent  a  very  low  stage  of  civilization, 
being  unspeakably  filthy  in  their  habits  and  frequently 
becoming  disgustingly  intoxicated  on  a  liquor  of  their 
own  manufacture — the  Bornean  equivalent  of  home 
brew.  A  Murut  or  Dusun  village  usually  consists  of 
a  single  long  hut  divided  into  a  great  number  of  small 
rooms,  one  for  each  family — a  jungle  apartment 
house,  as  it  were.  These  rooms  open  out  into  a  com- 
mon gallery  or  verandah  along  which  the  heads  taken 
by  the  warriors  of  the  tribe  are  festooned.  It  is  as 
though  the  tenants  of  a  New  York  apartment  house 
had  the  heads  of  the  landlord  and  the  rent-collector 
and  the  janitor  swinging  over  the  front  entrance.  I 


6o  STRANGE  TRAILS 

should  add,  perhaps,  that  the  practise  of  head-hunt- 
ing— of  which  I  shall  speak  at  greater  length  when 
we  reach  Dutch  Borneo— is  fostered  and  encouraged 
by  the  unmarried  women,  for  every  self-respecting 
Bornean  girl  demands  that  her  suitor  shall  establish  his 
social  position  in  the  tribe  by  acquiring  a  respectable 
number  of  heads,  just  as  an  American  girl  insists  that 
the  man  she  marries  must  provide  her  with  a  solitaire, 
a  flat  and  a  flivver. 

Though  the  chartered  company  has  ruled  in  North 
Borneo  for  more  than  forty  years,  it  has  only  nibbled 
at  the  edges  of  the  country.  The  interior  is  still  un- 
civilized and  largely  unexplored,  the  home  of  savage 
animals  and  still  more  savage  men.  Though  a  rail- 
way has  been  pushed  up-country  from  Jesselton  for 
something  over  a  hundred  miles,  both  road  and  roll- 
ing-stock leave  much  to  be  desired,  the  little  tin-pot 
locomotives  net  infrequently  leaving  the  rails  alto- 
gether and  landing  in  the  river.  Some  years  ago  an 
attempt  was  made  to  build  a  highway  across  the  pro- 
tectorate, from  coast  to  coast,  but  after  sixty  miles 
had  been  completed  the  project  was  abandoned.  It 
was  known  as  the  Sketchley  Road  and  ran  through  a 
rank  and  miasmatic  jungle,  it  being  said  that  every 
hundred  yards  of  construction  cost  the  life  of  a  Chinese 
laborer  and  that  those  who  were  left  died  at  the  end. 
Today  it  is  only  a  memory,  having  long  since  been 
swallowed  up  by  the  fast-growing  vegetation. 

The  company  has  taken  no  steps  toward  establishing 
a  system  of  public  schools,  as  we  have  done  in  the 


"NO  TEN  COMMANDMENTS"         61 

Philippines,  for  it  holds  to  the  outworn  theory  that, 
so  far  as  the  natives  are  concerned,  a  little  learning 
is  a  dangerous  thing.  Perhaps  the  company  is  right. 
Were  the  natives  to  acquire  a  little  learning  it  might 
prove  dangerous — for  the  company.  There  are  a  few 
schools  in  North  Borneo,  but  they  are  maintained  by 
the  Protestant  and  Roman  Catholic  missions  and  are 
attended  mainly  by  Chinese.  Whether  they  have 
proved  as  potent  an  influence  in  the  propagation  of 
the  Christian  faith  as  their  founders  anticipated  is 
open  to  doubt.  When  I  was  in  Sandakan  I  made 
some  purchases  in  the  bazaars  from  a  Chinese  lad  who 
addressed  me  quite  fluently  in  my  own  tongue. 

"How  does  it  happen  that  you  speak  such  good  Eng- 
lish?" I  asked  him. 

"Go  to  school,"  he  grunted,  none  too  amiably. 

"Where?    To  a  public  school ?" 

"No  public  school.     Church  school." 

"So  you're  a  good  Christian  now,  I  suppose?"  I 
remarked. 

"To  hell  with  Clistianity,"  he  retorted.  "Me  go 
to  school  to  learn  English." 

The  chartered  company  maintains  no  public  health 
service,  nor,  so  far  as  I  was  able  to  discover,  has  it 
adopted  the  most  rudimentary  sanitary  or  quarantine 
precautions.  It  is,  indeed,  so  notoriously  lax  in  this 
respect  that  when  we  touched  at  ports  in  Dutch  Bor- 
neo, the  Celebes,  and  Java,  the  mere  fact  that  we  had 
come  from  British  North  Borneo  caused  the  health 


62  STRANGE  TRAILS 

officers  to  view  us  with  grave  suspicion.  When  we 
were  in  Sandakan  the  town  was  undergoing  a  periodic 
visitation  of  that  deadliest  and  most  terrifying  of  all 
Oriental  diseases,  bubonic  plague.  As  it  is  transmitted 
by  the  fleas  on  plague-infested  rats,  we  took  the  pre- 
caution, when  we  went  ashore,  of  wearing  boots  and 
breeches  or  of  tying  the  bottoms  of  our  trousers  about 
our  ankles  with  string,  so  as  to  prevent  the  fleas  from 
biting  us.  It  being  necessary  to  go  alongside  the  coal- 
wharves  in  order  to  replenish  the  bunkers  of  the 
Negros,  orders  were  given  that  rat-guards — circular 
pieces  of  tin  about  the  size  of  a  barrel-top — should 
be  fixed  to  our  hawsers,  thus  making  it  difficult,  if  not 
impossible,  for  rats  to  invade  the  ship  by  that  route, 
while  sailors  armed  with  clubs  were  posted  along  the 
landward  rail  to  despatch  any  rodents  that  might  suc- 
ceed in  gaining  the  deck.  As  the  native  and  Chinese 
laborers  had  fled  in  terror  from  the  wharves,  where 
the  dreaded  disease  had  first  manifested  itself  through 
the  deaths  of  several  stevedores,  the  authorities  of- 
fered their  freedom  to  those  prisoners  in  the  local  jail 
who  would  volunteer  for  the  hazardous  work  of  clean- 
ing up  the  wharves  and  warehouses  and  sprinkling 
them  with  petroleum.  Six  prisoners  volunteered,  but 
they  might  better  have  served  out  their  terms,  for  the 
next  day  four  of  them  were  dead.  Though  the  stout 
Cockney,  harbormaster,  known  as  "Pinkie"  because 
of  his  rosy  complexion,  was  pallid  with  fear,  the  other 
European  residents  of  Sandakan  seemed  utterly  indif- 
ferent to  the  danger  to  which  they  were  exposed.  But 


"NO  TEN  COMMANDMENTS"          63 

life  in  a  land  like  Borneo  breeds  fatalism.  As  an 
official  remarked,  with  a  shrug  of  his  shoulders,  "After 
you  have  spent  a  few  years  out  here  you  don't  much 
care  how  you  die,  or  how  soon.  Plague  is  as  conven- 
ient a  way  of  going  out  as  any  other." 

The  greatest  obstacle  to  the  successful  development 
of  Borneo's  enormous  natural  resources  is  the  labor 
problem.  The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  life  in  these 
tropical  islands  is  too  easy  for  the  natives'  own  good. 
In  a  land  where  a  man  has  no  need  for  clothing,  being, 
indeed,  more  comfortable  without  it;  where  he  can 
pick  his  food  from  the  trees  or  catch  it  with  small 
effort  in  the  sea ;  and  where  bamboos  and  nipa  are  all 
the  materials  required  for  a  perfectly  satisfactory 
dwelling,  there  is  no  incentive  for  work.  It  being  im- 
possible, therefore,  to  depend  on  native  labor,  the  com- 
pany has  been  forced  to  import  large  numbers  of 
coolies  from  China.  These  coolies,  whom  the  labor 
agents  attract  with  promises  of  high  wages,  a  delight- 
ful climate,  unlimited  opium,  and  other  things  dear  to 
the  Chinese  heart,  are  employed  under  an  indenture 
system,  the  duration  of  their  contracts  being  limited 
by  law  to  three  hundred  days.  That  sounds,  on  the 
face  of  it,  like  a  safeguard  against  peonage.  The 
trouble  is,  however,  that  it  is  easily  circumvented. 
Here  is  the  way  it  works  in  practise.  Shortly  after 
the  laborer  reaches  the  plantation  where  he  is  to  be 
employed  he  is  given  an  advance  on  his  pay,  frequently 
amounting  to  thirty  Singapore  dollars,  which  he  is  en- 


64  STRANGE  TRAILS 

couraged  to  dissipate  in  the  opium  dens  and  gambling 
houses  maintained  on  the  plantation.  Any  one  who 
has  any  knowledge  of  the  Chinese  coolie  will  realize 
how  temperamentally  incapable  he  is  of  resistance 
where  opium  and  gambling  are  concerned.  This 
pernicious  system  of  advances  has  the  effect,  as 
it  is  intended  to  have,  of  chaining  the  laborer  to  the 
plantation  by  debt.  For  the  first  advance  is  usually 
followed  by  a  second,  and  sometimes  by  a  third,  and 
to  this  debit  column  are  added  the  charges  made  for 
food,  for  medical  attendance,  for  opium,  and  for  pur- 
chases made  at  the  plantation  store,  so  that,  upon  the 
expiration  of  his  three-hundred-day  contract,  the  la- 
borer almost  invariably  owes  his  employer  a  debt  which 
he  is  quite  unable  to  pay.  As  he  cannot  obtain  employ- 
ment elsewhere  in  the  colony  under  these  conditions, 
he  is  faced  with  the  alternative  of  being  shipped  back 
to  China  a  pauper  or  of  signing  another  contract. 
There  is  no  breaking  of  the  law  by  the  planter,  you  see : 
the  laborer  is  perfectly  free  to  leave  when  his  con- 
tract has  expired — as  free  as  any  man  can  be  who  is 
absolutely  penniless. 

Let  me  quote  from  a  letter  from  the  former  As- 
sistant Protector  of  Labor  of  British  North  Borneo. 
From  the  very  nature  of  his  duties  he  knows  whereof 
he  speaks: 

"One  sees  a  large  number  of  healthy,  able-bodied 
Chinese  coming  into  the  country  as  laborers  and, 
at  the  end  of  a  year  or  two,  instead  of  going  back  to 
their  homes  with  money  in  their  pockets  and  healthy 


"NO  TEN  COMMANDMENTS"          65 

with  outdoor  work,  they  go  back  as  broken  beggars, 
pitifully  saturated  with  disease  or  confirmed  drug 
fiends.  It  is  really  sad  to  see  some  of  them  return 
home  after  a  struggle  of  four  or  five  years  to  save 
money — a  struggle  not  only  against  themselves  and 
their  acquired  opium  habit,  but  against  the  numerous 
parasites  which  always  fatten  on  laborers." 

During  the  term  of  his  indenture  the  laborer  is  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  a  prisoner,  his  only  appeal  against 
any  injustices  practised  on  the  plantation  being  to  the 
Protector  of  Labor,  who  is  supposed  to  visit  each 
estate  once  a  month.  In  theory  this  system  is  admir- 
able, but  in  practise  it  does  not  afford  the  laborer  the 
protection  which  the  law  intends,  for  it  frequently 
happens  that  laborers  who  have  been  brutally  mis- 
treated have  been  coerced  into  silence  by  the  plantation 
managers  by  threats  of  what  will  happen  to  them  if 
they  dare  to  lay  a  complaint  before  the  inspecting 
official.  Moreover,  many  of  the  plantations  are  so 
remotely  situated,  so  far  removed  from  civilization, 
that  a  manager  can  treat  his  laborers  as  he  pleases 
with  little  fear  of  detection  or  punishment.  If  negroes 
are  held  in  peonage,  flogged,  and  even  murdered  on 
plantations  in  our  own  South,  within  rifle-shot  of  court- 
houses and  sheriffs'  offices  and  churches,  is  it  to  be  won- 
dered at  that  similar  conditions  can  and  do  exist  in  the 
world-distant  jungles  of  Borneo.  Mind  you,  I  do  not 
say  that  such  conditions  exist  on  all  or  most  of  the 
estates  in  British  North  Borneo,  but  I  have  the  best 


66  STRANGE  TRAILS 

of  reasons  for  believing  that  they  exist  on  some  of 
them. 

One  of  the  most  serious  defects  in  the  labor  laws  of 
North  Borneo  is  that  trivial  actions  or  omissions  on 
the  part  of  ignorant  coolies,  such  as  misconduct,  neglect 
of  work,  or  absence  from  the  estate  without  leave,  are 
punishable  by  imprisonment.  As  a  result,  the  illiterate 
and  incoherent  coolie  does  not  know  where  he  stands. 
He  can  never  be  sure  that  some  trivial  action  on  his 
part,  no  matter  how  innocent  his  intent,  will  not  bring 
him  within  reach  of  the  criminal  law.  He  is,  more- 
over, denied  the  right  of  trial  by  jury,  his  case  usually 
being  decided  off-hand  by  a  bored  and  unsympathetic 
magistrate  who  has  no  knowledge  of  the  defendant's 
tongue.  Moreover,  the  company's  laws  permit  the 
punishment  of  unruly  laborers  by  flogging,  with  a  maxi- 
mum of  twelve  lashes.  In  view  of  the  remoteness  of 
most  of  the  estates,  it  is  scarcely  necessary  for  me  to 
point  out  that  this  is  a  form  of  punishment  open  to 
the  gravest  abuse. 

Although,  as  I  have  shown,  the  British  North  Bor- 
neo Company  permits  the  existence  of  a  system  not  far 
removed  from  slavery,  a  far  more  serious  indictment 
of  the  company's  administration  lies  in  its  systematic 
debauchery  of  its  laborers  by  encouraging  them  to 
indulge  in  opium  smoking  and  gambling  for  the  pur- 
pose of  swelling  its  revenues.  Nor  does  its  heartless 
exploitation  of  the  laborer  end  there,  for  when  a 
coolie  has  dissipated  all  his  earnings  in  the  opium 
dens  and  gaming  houses,  which  are  run  under  govern- 


"NO  TEN  COMMANDMENTS"          67 

ment  concessions,  he  can  usually  realize  a  little  more 
money  for  the  same  purpose  by  pawning  his  few  poor 
belongings  at  one  of  the  pawnshops  controlled  by  the 
company.  In  other  words,  from  the  day  a  laborer  sets 
foot  in  Borneo  until  the  day  he  departs,  he  is  system- 
atically separated  from  his  earnings,  which  are  di- 
verted, through  the  channels  provided  by  the  opium 
dens,  the  gambling  houses  and  the  pawn  shops,  into  a 
stream  which  eventually  empties  into  the  company's 
coffers.  For,  mark  you,  the  chartered  company  did  not 
go  to  North  Borneo  from  any  altruistic  motives.  It  is 
animated  by  no  desire  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of 
the  natives  or  to  increase  the  well-being  and  happi- 
ness of  its  imported  laborers.  It  is  there  with  one  ob- 
ject in  view/ and  one  alone — to  pay  dividends  to  its 
stockholders.  As  the  chairman  of  the  company  said 
at  a  recent  North  Borneo  dinner  in  London:  "They 
have  acted  the  parts  of  Empire  makers  and  yet  they 
are  filling  their  own  pockets,  for  the  golden  rain  is 
beginning  to  fall." 

Let  me  show  you  where  this  "golden  rain"  comes 
from.  The  two  principal  sources  of  revenue  of  the 
British  North  Borneo  Company  are  opium  and  gam- 
bling. Suppose  that  you  come  with  me  for  a  stroll 
down  the  Jalan  Tiga  in  Sandakan  and  see  the  gaming 
houses  and  the  opium  dens  for  yourself.  Jalan  Tiga 
(literally  "Number  Two  Street")  is  a  moderately 
broad  thoroughfare,  perhaps  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in 
length,  which  is  solidly  lined  on  both  sides  with  gam- 
bling houses,  or,  as  they  are  called  in  Borneo,  gambling 


68  STRANGE  TRAILS 

farms,  the  term  being  due  to  the  fact  that  the  gambling 
privileges  are  farmed  out  by  the  government.  There 
may  be  wickeder  streets  somewhere  in  the  East 
than  the  Jalan  Tiga,  but  I  do  not  recall  having 
seen  them.  It,  and  the  thoroughfares  immedi- 
ately adjoining,  in  which  are  situated  the  opium 
dens  and  the  houses  of  prostitution,  form  a  district 
which  represents  the  very  quintessence  of  Oriental 
vice.  Over  virtually  every  door  are  signs  in  Chi- 
nese, Malay  and  English  announcing  that  games  of 
chance  are  played  within.  Such  resorts  are  not  cam- 
ouflaged in  Borneo.  They  are  as  open  as  a  railway 
station  or  a  public  library  in  the  United  States.  From 
afternoon  until  sunrise  these  resorts  are  crowded  to 
the  doors  with  half-naked,  perspiring  humanity,  brown 
skins  and  yellow  being  in  about  equal  proportions,  for 
the  Malay  is  as  inveterate  a  gambler  as  the  Chinese. 
The  downstairs  rooms,  which  are  frequented  by  the 
lower  classes,  are  thickly  sprinkled  with  low  tables 
covered  with  mats  divided  into  four  sections,  each  of 
which  bears  a  number.  A  dice  under  a  square  brass 
cup  is  shaken  on  the  table  and  the  cup  slowly  raised. 
Those  players  who  have  been  lucky  enough  to  place 
their  bets  on  the  square  whose  number  corresponds 
to  the  number  uppermost  on  the  dice  have  their  money 
doubled,  the  others  see  their  earnings  swept  into  the 
lap  of  the  croupier,  a  fat  and  greasy  Chinaman,  usually 
stripped  to  the  waist.  In  this  system  the  chances 
against  the  player  are  enormous.  The  play  is  very 
rapid,  the  dice  being  shaken,  the  cup  raised,  the  win- 


"NO  TEN  COMMANDMENTS"-         69 

ners  paid  and  the  wagers  of  the  losers  raked  in  too 
quickly  for  the  untrained  eye  to  follow.  The  players 
seldom  quit  as  long  as  they  have  any  money  left  to 
wager,  but  as  soon  as  one  drops  out  there  is  another 
ready  to  take  his  place.  The  upstairs  rooms,  which 
are  usually  handsomely  decorated  and  luxuriously  fur- 
nished, are  reserved  for  the  wealthier  patrons,  it  being 
by  no  means  uncommon  for  a  player  to  lose  several 
thousand  dollars  in  a  single  night.  Here  cards  are 
generally  used  instead  of  dice  to  separate  the  players 
from  their  money,  fan-tan  being  the  favorite  game.  I 
was  told  that  the  monthly  subsidy  paid  by  the  British 
North  Borneo  Company  to  the  Sultan  of  Sulu,  who 
comes  over  from  Jolo  with  great  regularity  to  collect 
it,  never  leaves  the  country,  as  he  invariably  loses  it 
over  a  Sandakan  gaming-table.  Gambling  is  a  gov- 
ernment monopoly  in  Borneo,  the  company  fanning 
out  the  privilege  each  year  to  the  highest  bidder.  In 
1919  the  gambling  rights  for  the  entire  protectorate 
were  sold  for  approximately  $144,000. 

Crossing  the  Jalan  Tiga  at  right  angles  and  run- 
ning from  the  heart  of  the  town  down  to  the  edge  of 
the  harbor  is  the  street  of  the  prostitutes.  It  is  easy 
to  recognize  the  houses  of  ill-fame  by  their  scarlet 
blinds  and  by  the  scarlet  numbers  over  their  doors. 
Should  you  stroll  down  the  street  during  the  day  you 
will  find  the  sullen-eyed  inmates  seated  in  the  door- 
ways, brushing  their  long  and  lustrous  blue-black  hair 
or  painting  their  faces  in  white  and  vermillion  prepa- 
ratory to  the  evening's  entertainment.  Probably  four- 


70  STRANGE  TRAILS 

fifths  of  the  piles  de  joie  in  Sandakan  are  Chinese,  the 
others  are  products  of  Nippon — quaint,  dainty,  doll- 
like  little  women  with  faces  so  heavily  enameled  that 
they  would  be  cracked  by  a  smile.  When  a  Chinese 
merchant  wants  a  wife  he  usually  visits  a  house  of  pros- 
titution, selects  one  of  the  inmates,  drives  a  hard  bar- 
gain with  the  hard-eyed  mistress  of  the  establishment, 
and,  the  transaction  concluded,  brusquely  tells  the  girl 
to  pack  her  belongings  and  accompany  him  to  his  home. 
I  might  add  that  the  girls  thus  chosen  invariably  make 
good  wives  and  remain  faithful  to  their  husbands. 

Running  parallel  to  the  Jalan  Tiga  is  another  street 
— I  do  not  recall  its  name — in  which  are  the  opium 
farms.  Far  from  being  veiled  in  secrecy,  they  are 
operated  as  openly  as  American  soda  fountains.  A 
typical  opium  farm  consists  of  a  two-story  wooden 
house,  one  of  a  long  row  of  similar  buildings,  contain- 
ing a  number  of  small,  ill-lighted  rooms  which  reek 
with  the  sickly  sweet  fumes  of  the  drug.  The  furni- 
ture consists  of  a  number  of  so-called  beds,  which  in 
reality  are  wooden  platforms  or  tables,  their  tops, 
which  are  raised  about  three  feet  above  the  floor,  pro- 
viding space  on  which  two  smokers  can  recline.  Each 
smoker  is  provided  with  a  block  of  wood  which  serves 
as  a  pillow  and  a  small  lamp  for  heating  his  "pill." 
The  number  of  patrons  who  may  be  accommodated 
at  one  time  is  prescribed  by  law  and  rigidly  enforced, 
signs  denoting  the  authorized  capacity  of  the  house 
being  posted  at  the  door,  like  the  signs  in  elevators 
and  on  ferry-boats  in  America.  For  example,  the  door 


The  Jalan  Tiga,  Sandakan 
A  moderately  broad  thoroughfare,  lined  on  both  sides  with  gambling-houses 


A  patron  of  a  Sandakan  opium  farm 
Each  smoker  is  provided  with  a  lamp  for  heating  his  "pill"  and  a  wooden  head-rest 


"NO  TEN  COMMANDMENTS"          71 

of  one  farm  that  I  visited  bore  the  notice  "Only  fifteen 
beds.  Room  for  thirty  persons."  Over-crowding  is 
forbidden  by  the  authorities,  not,  as  in  the  case  of  ele- 
vators and  ferry-boats,  for  reasons  of  safety,  but  for 
financial  reasons.  The  more  opium  farms  there  are, 
you  see,  the  greater  the  company's  profits. 

The  opium  is  purchased  by  the  chartered  company 
from  the  Government  of  the  Straits  Settlements  for 
$1.20  a  tael  (about  one-tenth  of  a  pound  troy)  and, 
after  being  adulterated  with  various  substances,  is  sold 
to  the  opium  farmers,  nearly  all  of  whom  are  Chinese, 
for  $8.50  a  tael,  the  company  thus  making  a  very  com- 
fortable margin  of  profit  on  the  transaction.  The 
opium  farmers  either  keep  opium  dens  themselves  or 
sell  the  drug  to  anyone  wishing  to  buy  it,  just  as  a  to- 
bacconist sells  cigars  and  cigarettes.  The  sale  of  the 
opium  privilege  in  Sandakan  alone  nets  the  govern- 
ment, so  I  was  informed,  something  over  $500,000 
annually. 

Now,  iniquitous  and  deplorable  as  such  a  traffic  is, 
the  British  North  Borneo  administration  is  not  the 
only  government  engaged  in  the  sale  of  opium.  But 
it  is  the  only  government,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  which 
virtually  forces  the  drug  on  its  people  by  insisting  that 
it  shall  be  purchasable  in  localities  which  might  other- 
wise escape  its  malign  influence.  A  planter  who, 
actuated  either  by  moral  scruples  or  by  a  desire  to 
maintain  the  efficiency  of  his  laborers,  opposes  the 
opening  of  an  opium  farm  on  his  estate,  might  as  well 
sell  out  and  leave  Borneo,  for  the  company  will 


72  STRANGE  TRAILS 

promptly  retaliate  for  such  interference  with  its  reve- 
nues by  cutting  off  his  supply  of  labor.  It  will  defend 
its  action  by  naively  asserting  that,  as  the  coolies  would 
contrive  to  obtain  the  drug  any  way,  the  planter,  in 
refusing  to  permit  the  opening  of  an  opium  farm 
on  his  property,  is  guilty  of  conniving  at  the  illegal 
use  of  the  drug  I 

The  British  North  Borneo  Company  professes  to 
find  justification  for  engaging  in  the  opium  traffic  by 
insisting  that,  as  the  Chinese  will  certainly  obtain 
opium  clandestinely  if  they  cannot  obtain  it  openly,  it  is 
better  for  everyone  concerned  that  its  sale  and  use 
should  be  kept  under  government  control.  The  fact 
remains,  however,  that  China,  decadent  though  she 
may  be  and  desperately  in  need  of  increased  revenues, 
has  succeeded,  in  spite  of  the  powerful  opposition  of 
the  British-owned  Opium  Ring,  in  putting  an  end  to  the 
traffic  within  her  borders,  while  Siam,  likewise  under 
Oriental  rule,  is  about  to  do  the  same.  It  is  a  curious 
commentary  on  European  civilization  that  this  vice, 
which  the  so-called  "backward"  races  are  vigorously 
attempting  to  stamp  out,  should  be  not  only  permitted 
but  encouraged  in  a  country  over  which  flies  the  flag 
of  England.  Its  effects  on  the  population  are  summed 
up  in  this  sentence  from  a  letter  written  me  by  a  former 
high  official  of  the  chartered  company :  "Fifty  per  cent 
of  the  thefts  and  robberies  committed  during  the 
period  that  I  was  magistrate  in  that  territory  can  be 
directly  traced  to  opium  and  gambling." 


"NO  TEN  COMMANDMENTS"          73 

"There  is  held  each  year,  at  one  of  the  great  Lon- 
don hotels,  the  North  Borneo  Dinner.  It  is  one  of 
the  most  brilliant  affairs  of  the  season.  At  the  head 
of  the  long  table,  banked  with  flowers  and  gleaming 
with  glass  and  silver,  sits  the  chairman  of  the  char- 
tered company,  flanked  by  cabinet  ministers,  arch- 
bishops, ambassadors,  admirals,  field  marshals.  The 
speakers  work  the  audience  into  a  fervor  of  patriotic 
pride  by  their  sonorous  word-pictures  of  England's 
services  to  humanity  in  bearing  the  white  man's  bur- 
den, and  of  the  spread  of  enlightenment  and  progress 
under  the  Union  Jack.  But  the  heartiest  applause  in- 
variably greets  the  announcement  that  the  North  Bor- 
neo Company  has  declared  a  dividend.  Whence  the 
money  to  pay  the  dividend  was  derived  is  tactfully  left 
unsaid.  The  dinner  always  concludes  with  the  singing 
of  the  anthem  Land  of  Hope  and  Glory.  Yet  they  say 
that  the  English  have  no  sense  of  humor ! 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   EMERALDS  OF  WILHELMINA 

IN  Singapore  stands  one  of  the  most  significant 
statues  in  the  world.  From  the  centre  of  its  sun- 
scorched  Esplanade  rises  the  bronze  figure  of  a  youth- 
ful, slender,  clean-cut,  keen-eyed  man,  clad  in  the  high- 
collared  coat  and  knee-breeches  of  a  century  ago,  who, 
from  his  lofty  pedestal,  peers  southward,  beyond  the 
shipping  in  the  busy  harbor,  beyond  the  palm-fringed 
straits,  toward  those  mysterious,  alluring  islands  which 
ring  the  Java  Sea.  Though  his  name,  Thomas  Stam- 
ford Raffles,  doubtless  holds  for  you  but  scanty  mean- 
ing, and  though  he  died  when  only  forty-five,  his  last 
years  shadowed  by  the  ingratitude  of  the  country  whose 
commercial  supremacy  in  the  East  he  had  secured  and 
to  which  he  had  offered  a  vast,  new  field  for  colonial 
expansion,  he  was  one  of  the  greatest  architects  of 
empire  that  ever  lived.  He  combined  the  vision  and 
administrative  genius  of  Clive  and  Hastings  with  the 
audacity  and  energy  of  Hawkins  and  Drake.  It  was 
his  dream,  to  use  his  own  words,  "to  make  Java  the 
center  of  an  Eastern  insular  empire"  ruled  "not  only 
without  fear  but  without  reproach" ;  an  empire  to  con- 
sist of  that  great  archipelago — Sumatra,  Java,  Borneo, 
the  Celebes,  New  Guinea,  and  the  lesser  islands 

74 


THE  EMERALDS  OF  WILHELMINA     75 

which  sweeps  southward  and  eastward  from  the  Asian 
mainland  to  the  edges  of  Australasia.  Though  this 
splendid  colonial  structure  was  erected  according  to 
the  plans  that  Raffles  drew,  by  curious  circumstance 
the  flag  that  flies  over  it  today  is  not  his  flag, 'not  the 
flag  of  England,  for,  instead  of  being  governed  from 
Westminster,  as  he  had  dreamed,  it  is  governed  from 
The  Hague,  the  ruler  of  its  fifty  million  brown  inhabi- 
tants being  the  stout,  rosy-cheeked  young  woman  who 
dwells  in  the  Palace  of  Het  Loo. 

Though  in  area  Queen  Wilhelmina's  colonial  pos- 
sessions are  exceeded  by  those  of  Britain  and  France, 
she  is  the  sovereign  of  the  second  largest  colonial  em- 
pire, in  point  of  population,  in  the  world.  But,  be- 
cause it  lies  beyond  the  beaten  paths  of  tourist  travel, 
because  it  has  been  so  little  advertised  by  plagues  and 
famines  and  rebellions,  and  because  it  has  been  so  ad- 
mirably and  unobtrusively  governed,  it  has  largely  es- 
caped public  attention — a  fact,  I  imagine,  with  which 
the  Dutch  are  not  ill-pleased.  Did  you  realize,  I  won- 
der, that  the  Insulinde,  as  Netherlands  India  is  some- 
times called,  is  as  large,  or  very  nearly  as  large,  as  all 
that  portion  of  the  United  States  lying  east  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi ?  Did  you  know  that  in  the  third  largest  island 
of  the  archipelago,  Sumatra,  the  State  of  California 
could  be  set  down  and  still  leave  a  comfortable  margin 
all  around?  Or  that  the  fugitive  from  justice  who 
turns  the  prow  of  his  canoe  westward  from  New 
Guinea  must  sail  as  far  as  from  Vancouver  to  Yoko- 


76  STRANGE  TRAILS 

hama  before  he  finds  himself  beyond  the  shadow  of  the 
Dutch  flag  and  the  arm  of  Dutch  law? 

Until  the  closing  years  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
European  trade  with  the  Far  East  was  an  absolute 
monopoly  in  the  hands  of  Spain  and  Portugal.  In- 
credible as  it  may  seem,  the  two  Iberian  nations  alone 
possessed  the  secret  of  the  routes  to  the  East,  which 
they  guarded  with  jealous  care.  In  1492,  Columbus, 
bearing  a  letter  from  the  King  of  Spain  to  the  Khan  of 
Tartary,  whose  power  and  wealth*  had  become  legend- 
ary in  Europe  through  the  tales  of  Marco  Polo  and 
other  overland  travelers,  sailed  westward  from  Cadiz 
in  search  of  Asia,  discovering  the  islands  which  came 
to  be  known  as  the  West  Indies.  Five  years  later  a 
Portuguese  sea-adventurer,  Vasco  da  Gama,  turned 
the  prow  of  his  caravel  south  from  the  mouth  of  the 
Tagus,  skirted  the  coast  of  Africa,  rounded  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope,  crossed  the  Indian  Ocean,  and  dropped 
his  anchor  in  the  harbor  of  Calicut — the  first  European 
to  reach  the  beckoning  East  by  sea.  For  a  quarter  of  a 
century  the  Portuguese  were  the  only  people  in  Europe 
who  knew  the  way  to  the  East,  and  their  secret  gave 
them  a  monopoly  of  the  Eastern  trade.  Lisbon  be- 
came the  richest  port  of  Europe.  Portugal  was  mis- 
tress of  the  seas.  But  in  1519  another  Portuguese 
seafarer,  Hernando  de  Maghallanes — we  call  him 
Ferdinand  Magellan — who,  resenting  his  treatment  by 
the  King  of  Portgual,  had  shifted  his  allegiance  to 
Spain,  sailed  southwestward  across  the  Atlantic, 
rounded  the  southern  extremity  of  America  by  the 


THE  EMERALDS  OF  WILHELMINA     77 

straits  which  bear  his  name,  crossed  the  unknown  Pa- 
cific, and  raised  the  flag  of  Spain  over  the  islands  which 
came  in  time  to  be  called  the  Philippines.  Spain  had 
reached  the  Indies  by  sailing  west,  as  Portugal  had 
reached  them  by  sailing  east. 

Though  the  fabulous  wealth  of  the  lands  thus  dis- 
covered was  discussed  around  every  council  table  and 
camp-fire  in  Europe,  the  routes  by  which  that  wealth 
might  be  attained  were  guarded  by  Portugal  and  Spain 
as  secrets  of  state.  The  charts  showing  the  routes 
were  not  intrusted  to  the  captains  of  vessels  in  the 
Eastern  trade  until  the  moment  of  departure,  and  they 
were  taken  up  immediately  upon  their  return;  the 
silence  of  officers  and  crews  was  insured  by  every  oath 
that  the  church  could  frame  and  every  penalty  that  the 
state  could  devise.  For  more  than  three-quarters  of  a 
century,  indeed,  the  two  Iberian  nations  succeeded  in 
keeping  the  secret  of  the  sea  roads  to  the  East,  its 
betrayal  being  punishable  by  death.  In  1580,  how- 
ever, the  English  freebooter,  Francis  Drake,  nick- 
named "The  Master  Thief  of  the  Unknown  World," 
duplicated  the  voyage  of  Magellan's  expedition  of 
threescore  years  before,  thus  discovering  the  route  to 
the  Indies  used  by  Spain. 

At  this  period  the  Dutch,  "the  waggoners  of  the 
sea,"  possessed,  as  middlemen,  a  large  interest  in  the 
spice  trade,  for  the  Portuguese,  having  no  direct  access 
to  the  markets  of  northern  Europe,  had  made  a  prac- 
tise of  sending  their  Eastern  merchandise  to  the 
Netherlands  in  Dutch  bottoms  for  distribution  by  way 


78  STRANGE  TRAILS 

of  the  Rhine  and  the  Scheldt.  As  a  result,  the  enor- 
mous carrying  trade  of  Holland  was  wholly  depend- 
ent upon  Lisbon.  But  when  Spain  unceremoniously 
annexed  Portugal  in  1580,  the  first  act  of  Philip,  upon 
becoming  master  of  Lisbon,  was  to  close  the  Tagus  to 
the  Dutch,  his  one-time  subjects,  who  had  revolted 
eight  years  before.  As  a  result  of  the  revenge  thus 
taken  by  the  Spanish  tyrant,  the  Dutch  were  faced  by 
the  necessity  of  themselves  going  in  quest  of  the  Indies 
if  their  flag  was  not  to  disappear  from  the  seas.  Their 
opportunity  came  a  dozen  years  later  when  a  venture- 
some Hollander,  Cornelius  Houtman,  who  was  risking 
imprisonment  and  even  death  by  trading  surrepti- 
tiously in  the  forbidden  city  on  the  Tagus,  succeeded 
in  obtaining  through  bribery  a  copy  of  one  of  the  secret 
charts.  The  Spanish  authorities  scarcely  could  have 
been  aware  that  he  had  learned  a  secret  of  such  im- 
mense importance,  or  his  silence  would  have  been 
insured  by  the  headsman.  As  it  was,  he  was  thrown 
into  prison  for  illegal  trading,  where  he  was  held  for 
heavy  ransom.  But  he  managed  to  get  word  to  Am- 
sterdam of  the  priceless  information  which  had  come 
into  his  possession,  whereupon  the  merchants  of  that 
city  promptly  formed  a  syndicate,  subscribed  the 
money  for  his  ransom,  and  obtained  his  release.  Thus 
it  came  about  that  shortly  after  his  return  to  Holland 
there  was  organized  the  Company  of  Distant  Lands, 
a  title  as  vague,  grandiose  and  alluring  as  the  plans 
of  those  who  founded  it.  In  1595,  then,  nearly  a 
century  after  da  Gama  had  shown  the  way,  four  car  a- 


THE  EMERALDS  OF  WILHELMINA     79 

vels  under  the  command  of  Houtman,  the  banner  of 
the  Netherlands  flaunting  from  their  towering  sterns, 
sailed  grandly  out  of  the  Texel,  slipped  past  the  white 
chalk  cliffs  of  Dover,  sped  southward  before  the 
trades,  rounded  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  laid 
their  course  across  the  Indian  Ocean  for  the  Spice 
Islands.  When  the  adventurers  returned,  two  years 
later,  they  brought  back  tales  of  islands  richer  than 
anything  of  which  the  Dutch  burghers  had  ever 
dreamed,  and  produced  cargoes  of  Eastern  merchan- 
dise to  back  their  stories  up. 

The  return  of  Houtman' s  expedition  was  the  signal 
for  a  great  outburst  of  commercial  enterprise  in  the 
Low  Countries,  seekers  after  fortune  or  adventure 
flocking  to  the  Indies  as,  centuries  later,  other  fortune- 
seekers,  other  adventurers,  flocked  to  the  gold-diggings 
of  the  Sierras,  the  Yukon,  and  the  Rand.  On  those 
distant  seas,  however,  the  adventurers  were  beyond 
the  reach  of  any  law,  the  same  lawless  conditions  pre- 
vailing in  the  Indies  at  the  beginning  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  which  characterized  Californian  life  in 
the  days  of  '49 •  The  Dutch  warred  on  the  natives 
and  on  the  Portuguese,  and,  when  there  was  no  one 
else  to  offer  them  resistance,  they  fought  among  them- 
selves. By  1602  conditions  had  become  so  intolerable 
that  the  government  of  Holland,  in  order  to  tran- 
quillize the  Indies,  and  to  stabilize  the  spice  market 
at  home,  decided  to  amalgamate  the  various  trading 
enterprises  into  one  great  corporation,  the  Dutch  East 
India  Company,  which  was  authorized  to  exercise  the 


8o  STRANGE  TRAILS 

functions  of  government  in  those  remote  seas  and  to 
prosecute  the  war  against  Spain.  When  Philip  shut 
the  Dutch  out  of  Lisbon,  he  made  a  formidable  enemy 
for  himself,  for,  though  the  burghers  went  to  the  East 
primarily  in  order  to  save  their  commerce  from  extinc- 
tion, they  were  animated  in  a  scarcely  less  degree  by  a 
determination  to  even  their  score  with  Spain. 

The  history  of  the  Dutch  East  India  Company  is 
not  a  savory  one.  It  was  a  powerful  instrument  for 
extracting  the  wealth  of  the  Indies,  and,  so  long  as 
the  wealth  was  forthcoming,  the  stockholders  at  home 
in  Holland  did  not  inquire  too  closely  as  to  how  the 
instrument  was  used.  The  story  of  the  company  from 
its  formation  in  1602  until  its  dissolution  nearly  two 
centuries  later  is  a  record  of  intrigue,  cruelty  and 
oppression.  It  exercised  virtually  sovereign  powers. 
It  made  and  enforced  its  own  laws,  it  maintained  its 
own  fleet  and  army,  it  negotiated  treaties  with  Japan 
and  China,  it  dethroned  sultans  and  rajahs,  it  estab- 
lished trading-posts  and  factories  at  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  in  the  Persian  Gulf,  on  the  coasts  of  Malabar 
and  Coromandel,  and  in  Bengal ;  it  waged  war  against 
the  Portuguese,  the  Spaniards  and  the  English  in  turn. 
When  at  the  summit  of  its  power,  in  1669,  the  com- 
pany possessed  forty  warships  and  one  hundred  and 
fifty  merchantmen,  maintained  an  army  of  ten  thou- 
sand men,  and  paid  a  forty  per  cent  dividend. 

Meanwhile  a  formidable  rival  to  the  Dutch  com- 
pany, the  English  East  India  Company,  had  arisen, 
but  the  accession  of  a  Dutchman,  William,  Prince  of 


THE  EMERALDS  OF  WILHELMINA     81 

Orange,  to  the  throne  of  England  in  1688  turned  the 
rivals  into  allies,  the  trade  of  the  eastern  seas  being 
divided  between  them.  But  toward  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century  there  came  another  change  in  the 
status  quo,  for  the  Dutch,  by  allying  themselves  with 
the  French,  became  the  enemies  of  England.  By  this 
time  Great  Britain  had  become  the  greatest  sea  power 
in  the  world,  so  that  within  a  few  months  after  the 
outbreak  of  hostilities  in  1795  the  British  flag  had 
replaced  that  of  the  Netherlands  over  Ceylon,  Ma- 
lacca, and  other  stations  on  the  highway  to  the  Insu- 
linde.  When  the  Netherlands  were  annexed  to  the 
French  Empire  by  Napoleon  in  1810  the  British 
seized  the  excuse  thus  provided  to  occupy  Java, 
Thomas  Stamford  Raffles,  the  brilliant  young  English- 
man who  was  then  the  agent  of  the  British  East  India 
Company  at  Malacca,  in  the  Malay  States,  being  sent 
to  Java  as  lieutenant-governor.  Urgent  as  were  his 
appeals  that  Java  should  be  retained  by  Britain  as  a 
jewel  in  her  crown  of  empire,  the  readjustment  of  the 
territories  of  the  great  European  powers  which  was 
effected  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  in  1816,  after  the 
fall  of  Napoleon,  resulted  in  the  restoration  to  the 
Dutch  of  those  islands  of  the  Insulinde,  including  Java, 
which  the  British  had  seized.  But,  though  Raffles 
ruled  in  Java  for  barely  four  and  a  half  years,  his 
spirit  goes  marching  on,  the  system  of  colonial  govern- 
ment which  he  instituted  having  been  continued  by  the 
Dutch,  in  its  main  outlines,  to  this  day.  He  won  the 
confidence  and  friendship  of  the  powerful  native 


82  STRANGE  TRAILS 

princes,  revolutionized  the  entire  legal  system,  revived 
the  system  of  village  or  communal  government,  re- 
formed the  land-tenure,  abolished  the  abominable  sys- 
tem of  forcing  the  natives  to  deliver  all  their  crops, 
and  gave  to  the  Javanese  a  rule  of  honesty,  justice  and 
wisdom  with  which,  up  to  that  time,  they  had  not  had 
even  a  bowing  acquaintance.  As  a  result  of  the  les- 
sons learned  from  Stamford  Raffles,  the  Dutch  pos- 
sessions in  the  East  are  today  more  wisely  and  justly 
administered  than  those  of  any  other  European  nation. 
The  Dutch  had  not  seen  the  last  of  Raffles,  how- 
ever, for  in  1817  he  returned  from  England,  where 
he  had  been  knighted  by  the  Prince  Regent,  to  take 
the  post  of  lieutenant-governor  of  Sumatra,  to  which 
the  British  did  not  finally  relinquish  their  claims  until 
half  a  century  later.  His  administration  of  that  great 
island  was  characterized  by  the  same  breadth  of  vision, 
tact,  and  energy  which  had  marked  his  rule  in  Java. 
It  was  during  this  period  that  Raffles  rendered  his 
greatest  service  to  the  empire.  The  Dutch,  upon  re- 
gaining Java,  attempted  to  obtain  complete  control  of 
all  the  islands  of  the  archipelago,  which  would  have 
resulted  in  seriously  hampering,  if  not  actually  ending, 
British  trade  east  of  Malacca.  But  Raffles,  recogniz- 
ing the  menace  to  British  interests,  defeated  the  Dutch 
scheme  in  January,  1819,  by  a  sudden  coup  d'etat, 
when  he  seized  the  little  island  at  the  tip  of  the  Malay 
Peninsula  which  commands  the  Malacca  Straits  and 
the  entrance  to  the  China  seas,  and  founded  Singa- 
pore, thereby  giving  Britain  control  of  the  gateway 


THE  EMERALDS  OF  WILHELMINA     83 

to  the  Farther  East  and  ending  forever  the  Dutch 
dream  of  making  of  those  waters  a  mare  clausum — a 
Dutch  lake. 

The  thousands  of  islands,  islets,  and  atolls  which 
comprise  Netherlands  India — the  proper  etymological 
name  of  the  archipelago  is  Austronesia — are  scat- 
tered over  forty-six  degrees  of  longitude,  on  both  sides 
of  the  equator.  Although  in  point  of  area  Java  holds 
only  fifth  place,  Sumatra,  Borneo,  New  Guinea  and 
the  Celebes  being  much  larger,  it  nevertheless  contains 
three-fourths  of  the  population  and  yields  four-fifths 
of  the  produce  of  the  entire  archipelago.  Though 
scarcely  larger  than  Cuba,  it  has  more  inhabitants  than 
all  the  Atlantic  Coast  States,  from  Maine  to  Florida, 
combined.  This,  added  to  the  strategic  importance  of 
its  situation,  the  richness  of  its  soil,  the  variety  of  its 
products,  the  intelligence,  activity  and  civilization  of 
its  inhabitants,  and  the  fact  that  it  is  the  seat  of  the 
colonial  government,  makes  Java  by  far  the  most 
important  unit  of  the  Insulinde.  Because  of  its  over- 
whelming importance  in  the  matters  of  position,  prod- 
ucts and  population,  it  is  administered  as  a  distinct 
political  entity,  the  other  portions  of  the  Dutch  Indies 
being  officially  designated  as  the  Outposts  or  the  Outer 
Possessions. 

Westernmost  and  by  far  the  most  important  of  the 
Outposts  is  Sumatra,  an  island  four-fifths  the  size  of 
France,  as  potentially  rich  in  mineral  and  agricultural 
wealth  as  Java,  but  with  a  sparse  and  intractable  popu- 
lation, certain  of  the  tribes,  notably  the  Achinese,  who 


84  STRANGE  TRAILS 

inhabit  the  northern  districts,  still  defying  Dutch  rule 
in  spite  of  the  long  and  costly  series  of  wars  which 
have  resulted  from  Holland's  attempt  to  subjugate 
them.  The  unmapped  interior  of  Sumatra  affords  an 
almost  virgin  field  for  the  explorer,  the  sportsman  and 
the  scientist.  It  has  ninety  volcanoes,  twelve  of  which 
are  active  (the  world  has  not  forgotten  the  eruption, 
in  1883,  of  Krakatu,  an  island  volcano  off  the  Su- 
matran  coast,  which  resulted  in  the  loss  of  forty 
thousand  human  lives)  ;  the  jungles  of  the  interior  are 
roamed  by  elephants,  tigers,  rhinoceroses,  panthers 
and  occasional  orang-utans,  while  in  the  scattered  vil- 
lages, with  their  straw-thatched,  highly  decorated 
houses,  dwell  barbarous  brown  men  practising  customs 
so  incredibly  eerie  and  fantastic  that  a  sober  narration 
of  them  is  more  likely  than  not  to  be  greeted  with  a 
shrug  of  amused  disbelief.  One  who  has  no  first- 
hand knowledge  of  the  Sumatran  tribes  finds  it  dif- 
ficult to  accept  at  their  face  value  the  accounts  of  the 
customs  practised  by  the  Bataks  of  Tapanuli,  for  ex- 
ample, who,  when  their  relatives  become  too  old  and 
infirm  to  be  of  further  use,  give  them  a  pious  inter- 
ment by  eating  them.  When  the  local  Doctor  Osiers 
have  decided  that  a  man  has  reached  the  age  when 
his  place  at  the  family  table  is  preferable  to  his  com- 
pany, the  aged  victim  climbs  a  lemon-tree,  beneath 
which  his  relatives  stand  in  a  circle,  wailing  the  death- 
song,  the  weird,  monotonous  chant  being  continued 
until  the  condemned  one  summons  the  courage  to 
throw  himself  to  the  ground,  whereupon  the  members 


THE  EMERALDS  OF  WILHELMINA    85 

of  his  family  promptly  despatch  him  with  clubs,  cut 
up  his  body,  roast  the  meat,  and  eat  it.  Thus  every 
stomach  in  the  tribe  becdmes,  in  effect,  a  sort  of  family 
burial-plot.  I  was  unable  to  ascertain  why  the  victim 
is  compelled  to  throw  himself  from  a  lemon-tree.  It 
struck  me  that  some  taller  tree,  like  a  palm,  would 
better  accomplish  the  desired  result.  A  matter  of  cus- 
tom, doubtless.  Perhaps  that  explains  why  we  dub 
persons  who  are  passe  "lemons."  Then  there  are 
the  Achinese,  whose  women  frequently  marry  when 
eight  years  old,  and  are  considered  as  well  along 
in  life  when  they  reach  their  teens;  and  the  Niassais, 
who  are  in  deadly  fear  of  albino  children  and  who 
kill  all  twins  as  soon  as  they  are  born.  Or  the  Me- 
nangkabaus,  whose  tribal  government  is  a  matriarchy: 
lands,  houses,  crops  and  children  belonging  solely  to 
the  wife,  who  may,  and  sometimes  does,  sell  her  hus- 
band as  a  slave  in  order  to  pay  her  debts. 

Trailing  from  the  eastern  end  of  Java  in  a  twelve- 
hundred-mile-long  chain,  like  the  wisps  of  paper  which 
form  the  tail  of  a  kite,  and  separated  by  straits  so  nar- 
row that  artillery  can  fire  across  them,  are  the  Lesser 
Sundas — Bali,  noted  for  its  superb  scenery  and  its 
alluring  women;  Lombok,  the  northernmost  island 
whose  flora  and  fauna  are  Australian;  Sumbawa, 
where  the  sandalwood  comes  from;  Flores,  whose  in- 
habitants consider  the  earth  so  holy  that  they  will  not 
desecrate  it  by  digging  wells  or  cultivation;  Timor, 
the  northeastern  half  of  which,  together  with  Goa  in 
India  and  Macao  in  China,  forms  the  last  remnant  of 


86  STRANGE  TRAILS 

Portugal's  once  enormous  Eastern  empire;  Rotti,  Kei, 
and  Aroo,  the  great  chain  thus  formed  linking  New 
Guinea,  the  largest  island  in  the  world,  barring  Aus- 
tralia, with  the  mainland  of  Asia.  Of  the  last-named 
island,  the  entire  western  half  belongs  to  Holland,  the 
remaining  half  being  about  equally  divided  between 
British  Papua,  in  the  southeast,  and  in  the  northeast 
the  former  German  colony  of  Kaiser  Wilhelm  Land, 
now  administered  by  Australia  under  a  mandate  from 
the  League  of  Nations. 

The  population  of  Dutch  New  Guinea  is  estimated 
at  a  quarter  of  a  million,  but  the  predilection  of  its 
puff-ball-headed  inhabitants  for  human  flesh  has  dis- 
couraged the  Dutch  census-takers  from  making  an 
accurate  enumeration,  as  the  Papuan  cannibal  does  not 
hesitate  to  sacrifice  the  needs  of  science  to  those  of  the 
cooking-pot.  Though  New  Guinea  is  believed  to  be 
enormously  rich  in  natural  resources,  and  has  many 
excellent  harbors,  the  secrets  of  its  mysterious  interior 
can  only  be  conjectured.  The  natives  are  as  degraded 
as  any  in  the  world ;  their  principal  vocation  is  hunting 
birds  of  paradise,  whose  plumes  command  high  prices 
in  the  European  markets;  their  chief  avocation  in  re- 
cent years  has  been  staging  imitation  cannibal  feasts 
for  the  benefit  of  motion-picture  expeditions.  But, 
unknown  and  unproductive  as  it  is  at  present,  I  would 
stake  my  life  that  New  Guinea  will  be  a  great  colony 
some  day. 

To  the  west  of  New  Guinea  and  to  the  south  of 
the  Philippines  lie  the  Moluccas — Ceram,  Amboin, 


THE  EMERALDS  OF  WILHELMINA    87 

Ternate,  Halmahera,  and  the  rest — the  Spice  Islands 
of  the  old-time  voyagers,  the  scented  tropic  isles  of 
which  Camoens  sang.  Amboin,  owing  to  the  fact  that 
Europeans  have  been  established  there  for  centuries  on 
account  of  its  trade  in  spices,  is  characterized  by  a 
much  higher  degree  of  civilization  than  the  rest  of 
the  Moluccas,  a  considerable  proportion  of  its  in- 
habitants professing  to  be  Christians.  The  flower  of 
the  colonial  army  is  recruited  from  the  Amboinese, 
who  regard  themselves  not  as  vassals  of  the  Dutch 
but  as  their  allies  and  equals,  a  distinction  which  they 
emphasize  by  wearing  shoes,  all  other  native  troops 
going  barefoot.  Beyond  the  Moluccas,  across  the 
Banda  Sea,  sprawls  the  Celebes,*  familiar  from  our 
school-days  because  of  its  fantastic  outline,  the  plural 
form  of  its  name  being  due  to  the  supposition  of  the 
early  explorers  that  it  was  a  group  of  islands  instead 
of  one.  And  finally,  crossing  Makassar  Straits,  we 
come  to  Borneo,  the  habitat  of  the  head-hunter  and 
the  orang-utan.  Though  Borneo  is  a  treasure-house 
for  the  naturalist,  the  botanist,  and  the  ethnologist,  the 
Dutch,  as  in  New  Guinea,  have  merely  scratched  its 
surface,  almost  no  attempt  having  thus  far  been  made 
to  exploit  its  enormous  natural  resources.  Thus  I 
have  arrayed  for  your  cursory  inspection  the  con- 
geries of  curious  and  colorful  islands  which  constitute 
Netherlands  India  in  order  that  you  may  comprehend 
the  problems  of  civilization  and  administration  which 

*  Pronounced  as  though  it  were  spelled  Cel-lay-bees,  with  the 
accent  on  the  second  syllable. 


88  STRANGE  TRAILS 

Holland  has  had  to  solve  in  those  distant  seas,  and 
that  you  may  be  better  qualified  to  judge  the  results 
she  has  achieved. 

The  Insulinde  has  eight  times  the  population  and 
sixty  times  the  area  of  the  mother  country,  from  which 
it  is  separated  by  ten  thousand  miles  of  sea,  yet  the 
sovereignty  of  Queen  Wilhelmina  is  upheld  among 
the  cannibals  of  New  Guinea,  the  head-hunters  of  Bor- 
neo, and  the  savages  of  Achin,  no  less  than  among 
the  docile  millions  of  Java,  by  less  than  ten  thousand 
European  soldiers.  That  a  territory  so  vast  and  with 
so  enormous  a  population,  should  be  so  admirably 
administered,  everything  considered,  by  so  small  a 
number  of  white  men,  is  in  itself  proof  of  the  Dutch 
genius  for  ruling  subject  races. 

From  the  day  when  Holland  determined  to  organize 
her  colonial  empire  for  the  benefit  of  the  natives  them- 
selves, instead  of  exploiting  it  for  the  benefit  of  a 
handful  of  Dutch  traders  and  settlers,  as  she  had 
previously  done,  she  has  employed  in  her  colonial 
service  only  thoroughly  trained  officials  of  proved 
ability  and  irreproachable  character.  The  Dutch  of- 
ficials whom  I  met  in  Java  and  the  Outposts  impressed 
me,  indeed,  as  being  men  of  altogether  exceptional 
capacity  and  attainments,  better  educated  and  quali- 
fied, as  a  whole,  than  those  whom  I  have  encountered 
in  the  British  and  French  colonial  possessions.  Since 
the  war,  owing  to  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  men  of 
sufficient  caliber  and  experience  to  fill  the  minor  posts, 


THE  EMERALDS  OF  WILHELMINA     89 

which  are  not  particularly  well  paid,  Holland  has  given 
employment  in  her  colonial  service  to  a  considerable 
number  of  Germans,  most  of  whom  had  been  trained 
in  colonial  administration  in  Germany's  African  and 
Pacific  possessions,  but  they  are  appointed,  of  course, 
only  to  posts  of  relative  unimportance. 

Every  year  the  Minister  of  the  Colonies  ascertains 
the  number  of  vacancies  in  the  East  Indian  service, 
and  every  year  the  Grand  Examination  of  Officials  is 
held  simultaneously  in  The  Hague  and  Batavia,  the 
results  of  this  examination  determining  the  eligibility 
of  candidates  for  admission  to  the  colonial  service  and 
the  fitness  of  officials  already  in  the  service  for  pro- 
motion. With  the  exception  of  the  Governor-General 
and  two  or  three  other  high  officials,  who  are  ap- 
pointed by  the  crown,  no  official  can  evade  this  exami- 
nation, to  pass  which  requires  not  only  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  East  Indian  languages,  politics  and  cus- 
toms, but  real  scholarship  as  well.  The  names  of  those 
candidates  who  pass  this  examination  are  certified  to 
the  Minister  of  the  Colonies,  who  thereupon  directs 
them  to  report  to  the  Governor-General  at  Batavia 
and  provides  them  with  funds  for  the  voyage.  Upon 
their  arrival  in  the  Indies  the  Governor-General  ap- 
points them  to  the  grade  of  controleur  and  tests  their 
capacity  by  sending  them  to  difficult  and  trying  posts 
in  Sumatra,  Borneo,  the  Celebes,  or  New  Guinea, 
where  they  must  conclusively  prove  their  ability  before 
they  can  hope  for  promotion  to  the  grades  of  assistant 
resident  and  resident,  and  the  relative  comfort  of  of- 


90  STRANGE  TRAILS 

ficial  life  in  Java.  In  the  Outposts  they  at  once  come 
face  to  face  with  innumerable  difficulties  and  respon- 
sibilities, for  the  controleur  is  responsible,  though 
within  narrower  limits  than  the  resident,  for  every- 
thing: justice,  police,  agriculture,  education,  public 
works,  the  protection  of  the  natives,  and  the  require- 
ments of  the  settlers  in  such  matters  as  labor  and 
irrigation.  He  is,  in  short,  an  administrator,  a  police 
official,  a  judge,  a  diplomatist,  and  an  adviser  on  al- 
most every  subject  connected  with  the  government  of 
tropical  dependencies.  The  officials  in  the  Outposts 
are  given  more  authority  and  greater  latitude  of  action 
than  their  colleagues  in  Java,  for  they  have  greater 
difficulties  to  cope  with,  while  the  intractability,  if  not 
the  open  hostility  of  the  natives  whom  they  are  called 
upon  to  rule  demands  greater  tact  and  diplomacy  than 
are  required  in  Java,  where  the  officials  are  inclined  to 
become  spoiled  by  their  easy-going  life  and  the  semi- 
royal  state  which  they  maintain. 

Though  Holland  demands  much  of  those  who  up- 
hold her  authority  in  the  Indies,  she  is  generous  in  her 
rewards.  The  Governor-General  draws  a  salary  of 
seventy  thousand  dollars  together  with  liberal  allow- 
ances for  entertaining,  and  is  provided  with  palaces 
at  Batavia  and  Buitenzorg,  while  at  Tjipanas,  on  one 
of  the  spurs  of  the  Gedei,  nearly  six  thousand  feet 
above  the  sea,  he  has  a  country  house  set  in  a  great 
English  park.  Wherever  he  is  in  residence  he  main- 
tains a  degree  of  state  scarcely  inferior  to  that  of  the 
sovereign  herself.  The  residents  are  paid  from  five 


THE  EMERALDS  OF  WILHELMINA    91 

thousand  dollars  to  nine  thousand  dollars  according  to 
their  grades,  the  assistant  residents  from  three  thou- 
sand five  hundred  dollars  to  five  thousand  dollars,  and 
the  controleurs  from  one  thousand  eight  hundred  dol- 
lars to  two  thousand  four  hundred  dollars.  Though 
officials  are  permitted  leaves  of  absence  only  once  in 
ten  years,  those  who  complete  twenty-five  years'  serv- 
ice in  the  Insulinde  may  retire  on  half-pay.  Even  at 
such  salaries,  however,  and  in  a  land  where  living  is 
cheap  as  compared  with  Europe,  it  is  almost  impossible 
for  the  officials  to  save  money,  for  they  are  expected 
to  entertain  lavishly  and  to  live  in  a  fashion  which 
will  impress  the  natives,  who  would  be  quick  to  seize 
on  any  evidence  of  economy  as  a  sign  of  weakness. 

Netherlands  India  is  ruled  by  a  dual  system  of 
administration — European  and  native.  By  miracles  of 
patience,  tact,  and  diplomacy,  the  Dutch  have  suc- 
ceeded in  building  up  in  the  Indies  a  gigantic  colonial 
empire,  which,  however,  they  could  not  hope  to  hold 
by  force  were  there  to  be  a  concerted  rising  of  the 
natives.  Realizing  this,  Holland — instead  of  attempt- 
ing to  overawe  the  natives  by  a  display  of  military 
strength,  as  England  has  done  in  Egypt  and  India,  and 
France  in  Algeria  and  Morocco — has  succeeded,  by 
keeping  the  native  princes  on  their  thrones  and  accord- 
ing them  a  shadowy  suzerainty,  in  hoodwinking  the 
ignorant  brown  mass  of  the  people  into  the  belief  that 
they  are  still  governed  by  their  own  rulers.  Though 
at  first  the  princes,  as  was  to  be  expected,  bitterly 
resented  the  curtailment  of  their  prerogatives  and 


92  STRANGE  TRAILS 

powers,  they  decided  that  they  might  better  remain 
on  their  thrones,  even  though  the  powers  remaining 
to  them  were  merely  nominal,  and  accept  the  titles, 
honors  and  generous  pensions  which  the  Dutch  offered 
them,  than  to  resist  and  be  ruthlessly  crushed.  In 
pursuance  of  this  shrewd  policy,  every  province  in  the 
Indies  has  as  its  nominal  head  a  native  puppet  ruler, 
known  as  a  regent,  usually  a  member  of  the  house 
which  reigned  in  that  particular  territory  before  the 
white  man  came.  Though  the  regents  are  appointed, 
paid,  and  at  need  dismissed  by  the  government,  and 
though  they  are  obliged  to  accept  the  advice  and  obey 
the  orders  of  the  Dutch  residents,  they  remain  the 
highest  personages  in  the  native  world  and  the  inter- 
mediaries through  whom  Holland  transmits  her  wishes 
and  orders  to  the  native  population. 

In  order  to  lend  color  to  the  fiction  that  the  natives 
are  still  ruled  by  their  own  princes,  the  regents  are 
provided  with  the  means  to  keep  up  a  considerable  de- 
gree of  ceremony  and  pomp;  they  have  their  opera- 
bouffe  courts,  their  gorgeously  uniformed  body-guards, 
their  gilded  carriages  and  golden  parasols,  and  some  of 
the  more  important  ones  maintain  enormous  house- 
holds. But,  though  they  preside  at  assemblies,  sign  de- 
crees, and  possess  all  the  other  external  attributes  of 
power,  in  reality  they  only  go  through  the  motions  of 
governing,  for  always  behind  their  gorgeous  thrones 
sits  a  shrewd  and  silent  Dutchman  who  pulls  the 
strings.  Though  this  system  of  dual  government  has 
the  obvious  disadvantage  of  being  both  cumbersome 


THE  EMERALDS  OF  WILHELMINA    93 

and  expensive,  it  is,  everything  considered,  perhaps  the 
best  that  could  have  been  devised  to  meet  the  existing 
conditions,  for  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that, 
should  the  Dutch  attempt  to  do  away  with  the  native 
princes,  there  would  be  a  revolt  which  would  shake  the 
Insulinde  to  its  foundations  and  would  gravely  imperil 
Dutch  domination  in  the  islands. 

The  most  interesting  examples  of  this  system  of 
dual  administration  are  found  in  the  Forstenlanden,  or 
"Lands  of  the  Princes,"  of  Surakarta  and  Djokja- 
karta, in  Middle  Java.  These  two  principalities, 
which  once  comprised  the  great  empire  of  Mataram, 
are  nominally  independent,  being  ostensibly  ruled  by 
their  own  princes :  the  Susuhunan  of  Surakarta  and  the 
Sultan  of  Djokjakarta,  who  are,  however,  despite  their 
high-sounding  titles  and  their  dazzling  courts,  but 
mouthpieces  for  the  Dutch  residents.  The  series  of 
episodes  which  culminated  in  the  Dutch  acquiring  com- 
plete political  ascendency  in  the  Forstenlanden  form 
one  of  the  most  picturesque  and  significant  chapters 
in  the  history  of  Dutch  rule  in  the  East.  Until  the 
last  century  these  territories  were  undivided,  forming 
the  kingdom  of  the  Susuhunan  of  Surakarta,  who, 
being  threatened  by  a  revolt  of  the  Chinese  who  had 
settled  in  his  dominions,  called  in  the  Dutch  to  aid 
him  in  suppressing  it.  They  came  promptly,  helped 
to  crush  the  rebellion,  and  so  completely  won  the  con- 
fidence of  the  Susuhunan  that  he  begged  their  arbitra- 
tion in  a  dispute  with  one  of  his  brothers,  who  had 
launched  an  insurrection  in  an  attempt  to  place  himself 


94  STRANGE  TRAILS 

on  the  throne.  Certain  historians  assert,  and  prob- 
ably with  truth,  that  this  insurrection  was  instigated 
and  encouraged  by  the  Dutch  themselves,  who  foresaw 
that  it  would  be  easier  to  subjugate  two  weak  states 
than  a  single  strong  one.  In  pursuance  of  this  policy, 
they  suggested  that,  in  order  to  avoid  a  fratricidal  and 
bloody  war,  the  kingdom  be  divided,  two-thirds  of  it, 
with  Surakarta  as  the  capital,  to  remain  under  the  rule 
of  the  Susuhunan;  the  remaining  third  to  be  handed 
over  to  the  pretender,  who  would  assume  the  title  of 
Sultan  and  establish  his  court  at  Djokjakarta.  This 
settlement  was  reluctantly  accepted  by  the  Susuhunan 
because  he  realized  that  he  could  hope  for  nothing 
better  and  by  his  brother  because  he  recognized  that 
he  might  do  much  worse. 

In  principle,  at  least,  the  Sultan  remained  the  vassal 
of  the  Susuhunan,  in  token  of  which  he  paid  him  public 
homage  once  each  year  at  Ngawen,  near  Djokjakarta, 
where,  in  the  presence  of  an  immense  concourse  of 
natives,  he  was  obliged  to  prostrate  himself  before  the 
Susuhunan's  throne  as  a  public  acknowledgment  of  his 
vassalage.  But  as  the  years  passed  the  breach  thus 
created  between  the  Susuhunan  and  the  Sultan  showed 
signs  of  healing,  which  was  the  last  thing  desired  by 
the  Dutch,  who  believed  in  the  maxim  Divide  ut 
imperes.  So,  before  the  next  ceremony  of  homage 
came  around,  they  sent  for  the  Sultan,  pointed  out  to 
him  the  humiliation  which  he  incurred  in  kneeling  be- 
fore the  Susuhunan,  and  offered  to  provide  him  with 
a  means  of  escaping  this  abasement.  Their  offer  was 


THE  EMERALDS  OF  WILHELMINA    95 

as  simple  as  it  was  ingenious — permission  to  wear  the 
uniform  of  a  Dutch  official.  This  was  by  no  means 
as  empty  an  honor  as  it  seemed,  as  the  Sultan  was 
quick  to  recognize,  for  one  of  the  tenets  of  Holland's 
rule  in  the  Indies  is  that  no  one  who  wears  the  Dutch 
uniform,  whether  European  or  native,  shall  impair  the 
prestige  of  that  uniform  by  kneeling  in  homage.  The 
Sultan,  needless  to  say,  eagerly  seized  the  opportunity 
thus  offered,  and,  when  the  date  for  the  next  ceremony 
fell  due  he  arrived  at  Ngawen  arrayed  in  the  blue  and 
gold  panoply  of  a  Dutch  official,  but,  instead  of  pros- 
trating himself  before  the  Susuhunan  in  the  grovelling 
dodok,  he  coolly  remained  seated,  as  befitted  a  Dutch 
official  and  an  independent  prince. 

The  animosity  thus  ingeniously  revived  between  the 
princely  houses  lasted  for  many  years,  which  was  ex- 
actly what  the  Dutch  had  foreseen.  But,  though  the 
Susuhunan  and  the  Sultan  had  been  goaded  into  hating 
each  other  with  true  Oriental  fervor,  they  hated  the 
Dutch  even  more.  In  order  to  divert  this  hostility 
toward  themselves  into  safer  channels,  the  Dutch 
evolved  still  another  scheme,  which  consisted  in  in- 
stalling at  the  court  of  the  Susuhunan,  as  at  that  of  the 
Sultan,  a  counter-irritant  in  the  person  of  a  rival 
prince,  who,  though  theoretically  a  vassal,  was  in  re- 
ality as  independent  as  the  titular  ruler.  And,  as  a 
final  touch,  the  Dutch  decreed  that  the  cost  of  main- 
taining the  elaborate  establishments  of  these  hated 
rivals  must  be  defrayed  from  the  privy  purses  of  the 
Susuhunan  and  the  Sultan.  The  "independent"  prince 


96  STRANGE  TRAILS 

at  Surakarta  is  known  as  the  Pangeran  Adipati  Mang- 
ku  Negoro;  the  one  at  Djokjakarta  as  the  Pangeran 
Adipati  Paku  Alam.  Both  of  these  princes  have  re- 
ceived military  educations  in  Holland,  hold  honorary 
commissions  in  the  Dutch  army,  and  wear  the  Dutch 
uniform;  their  handsome  palaces  stand  in  close  prox- 
imity to  those  of  the  Susuhunan  and  the  Sultan,  and 
both  are  permitted  to  maintain  small  but  well-drilled 
private  armies,  armed  with  modern  weapons  and  or- 
ganized on  European  lines.  The  "army"  of  Mangku 
Negoro  consists  of  about  a  thousand  men,  and  is  a 
far  more  efficient  fighting  force  than  the  fantastically 
uniformed  rabble  maintained  by  his  suzerain,  the  Susu- 
hunan. In  certain  respects  this  arrangement  resembles 
the  plan  which  is  followed  at  West  Point  and  Annap- 
olis, where,  if  the  appointee  fails  to  meet  the  entrance 
requirements,  the  appointment  goes  to  an  alternate, 
who  has  been  designated  with  just  such  a  contingency 
in  view.  Both  the  Susuhunan  and  the  Sultan  are  per- 
fectly aware  that  the  first  sign  of  disloyalty  to  the 
Dutch  on  their  part  would  result  in  their  being 
promptly  dethroned  and  the  "independent"  princes 
being  appointed  in  their  stead.  So,  as  they  like  their 
jobs,  which  are  well  paid  and  by  no  means  onerous 
— the  Susuhunan  receives  an  annual  pension  from  the 
Dutch  Government  of  some  three  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  dollars  and  has  in  addition  one  million  dol- 
lars worth  of  revenues  to  squander  each  year — their 
conduct  is  marked  by  exemplary  obedience  and  cir- 
cumspection. 


THE  EMERALDS  OF  WILHELMINA    97 

Ever  since  the  DIpo  Negoro  rebellion  of  1825, 
which  was  caused  by  the  insulting  behavior  of  an  in- 
competent and  tactless  resident  toward  a  native  prince, 
to  suppress  which  cost  Holland  five  years  of  warfare 
and  the  lives  of  fifteen  thousand  soldiers,  the  Dutch 
Government  has  come  more  and  more  to  realize  that 
most  of  the  disaffection  and  revolts  in  their  Eastern 
possessions  have  been  directly  traceable  to  tactlessness 
on  the  part  of  Dutch  officials,  who  either  ignored  or 
were  indifferent  to  the  customs,  traditions,  and  sus- 
ceptibilities of  the  natives.  It  is  the  recognition  and 
application  of  this  principle  that  has  been  primarily 
responsible  for  the  peace,  progress,  and  prosperity 
which,  in  recent  years,  have  characterized  the  rule  of 
Holland  in  the  Indies.  When  a  nation  with  a  quarter 
the  area  of  New  York  State,  and  less  than  two-thirds 
its  population,  with  a  small  army  and  no  navy  worthy 
of  the  name,  can  successfully  rule  fifty  million  people 
of  alien  race  and  religion,  half  the  world  away,  and 
keep  them  loyal  and  contented,  that  nation  has,  it 
seems  to  me,  a  positive  genius  for  colonial 
administration. 

Some  one  has  described  the  Dutch  East  Indies  as  a 
necklace  of  emeralds  strung  on  the  equator.  To  those 
who  are  familiar  only  with  colder,  less  gorgeous  lands, 
that  simile  may  sound  unduly  fanciful,  but  to  those 
who  have  seen  these  great,  rich  islands,  festooned 
across  four  thousand  miles  of  sea,  green  and  scintil- 
lating under  the  tropic  sun,  the  description  will  not 


98  STRANGE  TRAILS 

appear  as  far-fetched  as  it  seems.  A  necklace  of 
emeralds  I  The  more  I  ponder  over  that  description 
the  better  I  like  it.  Indeed,  I  think  that  that  is  what 
I  will  call  this  chapter — The  Emeralds  of  Wilhelmina. 


CHAPTER  V 

MAN-EATERS  AND  HEAD-HUNTERS 

THERE  is  no  name  between  the  covers  of  the  atlas 
which  so  smacks  of  romance  and  adventure  as  Borneo. 
Show  me  the  red-blooded  boy  who,  when  he  sees  that 
magic  name  over  the  wild  man's  cage  in  the  circus 
sideshow  or  over  the  orang-utan's  cage  in  the  zoo, 
does  not  secretly  long  to  go  adventuring  in  the  jun- 
gles of  its  mysterious  interior.  So,  because  there  is 
still  in  me  a  good  deal  of  the  boy,  thank  Heaven,  I 
ordered  the  course  of  the  Negros  laid  for  Samarinda, 
which,  if  the  charts  were  to  be  believed,  was  the  prin- 
cipal gateway  to  the  hinterland  of  Eastern  Borneo. 
There  are  no  roads  in  Borneo,  you  understand,  only 
narrow  foot-trails  through  the  steaming  jungle,  so  that 
the  only  practicable  means  of  penetrating  the  interior 
is  by  ascending  one  of  the  great  rivers.  The  Koetei, 
which  has  its  nativity  somewhere  in  the  mysterious 
Kapuas  Mountains,  winds  its  way  across  four  hun- 
dred miles  of  unmapped  wilderness,  and,  a  score  of 
miles  below  Samarinda,  empties  into  Makassar 
Straits,  answered  my  requirements  admirably,  provid- 
ing a  highroad  to  the  country  of  my  boyish  dreams. 
Though  I  told  the  others  that  I  was  going  up  the 
Koetei  in  order  to  see  the  strange  tribes  who  dwell 

99 


ioo  STRANGE  TRAILS 

along  its  upper  reaches,  I  admitted  to  myself  that  I 
had  one  object  in  view  and  one  alone — to  see  the  Wild 
Man. 

Viewed  from  the  deck  of  the  Negros,  Samarinda, 
which  is  the  capital  of  the  Residency  of  Koetei, 
was  entirely  satisfying.  It  corresponded  in  every  re- 
spect to  the  mental  picture  which  I  had  drawn  of  a 
Bornean  town.  It  straggles  for  two  miles  or  more 
along  a  dusty  road  shaded  by  a  double  row  of  flaming 
fire-trees.  Facing  on  the  road  are  a  few-score  miser- 
able shops  kept  by  Chinese  and  Arabs  ami  the  some- 
what more  pretentious  buildings  which  house  the  offices 
of  the  European  trading  companies.  Further  out,  at 
the  edge  of  the  town,  are  the  dwellings  of  the  Dutch 
officials  and  traders — comfortable-looking,  one-story, 
whitewashed  houses  with  deep  verandahs,  peering 
coyly  out  from  the  midst  of  fragrant,  blazing  gardens. 
The  Residency,  the  Custom  House,  the  Police  Barracks 
and  the  Koetei  Club  can  readily  be  distinguished  by  the 
Dutch  flags  that  droop  above  them.  The  river-bank 
itself  is  one  interminable  street.  Here  dwells  the 
brown-skinned  population — Malays,  Bugis,  Makas- 
sars,  and  a  sprinkling  of  Sea  Dyaks.  Sometimes  the 
flimsy,  cane-walled,  leaf-thatched  huts,  perched  aloft 
on  bamboo  stilts,  stand,  like  flocks  of  storks,  in  clus- 
ters. Again  they  stray  a  little  apart,  seeking  pro- 
tection from  the  pitiless  sun  beneath  clumps  of 
palms.  Malays  in  short,  tight  jackets  and  long, 
tight  breeches  of  kaleidoscopic  colors  were  saun- 
tering along  the  yellow  road,  oblivious  of  the  sun. 


MAN-EATERS  AND  HEAD-HUNTERS   101 

On  the  shelving  beach  naked  brown  men  were  mending 
their  nets  or  pottering  about  their  dwellings.  Now 
and  then  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  European,  cool  and 
comfortable  in  topee  and  white  linen.  It  was  all 
exactly  as  I  had  expected.  It  was,  indeed,  almost  too 
story-booky  to  be  true.  Here,  at  last,  was  a  green  and 
lovely  land,  unspoiled  by  noisy,  prying  tourists,  where 
one  could  lounge  the  lazy  days  away  beneath  the  palm- 
trees  or  stroll  with  dusky  beauties  on  a  beach  silvered 
by  the  tropic  moon.  I  was  impatient  to  go  ashore. 

Changing  from  pajamas  to  whites,  I  ordered  the 
launch  to  the  gangway  and  went  ashore  to  pay  my 
respects  to  the  Resident.  To  leave  your  card  on  the 
local  representative  of  Queen  Wilhelmina  is  the  first 
rule  of  etiquette  to  be  observed  by  the  foreigner  travel- 
ing in  the  Outer  Possessions.  In  Java,  which  is  more 
highly  civilized,  it  is  not  so  necessary.  Unlike  the 
Latin  races,  the  Dutch  are  not  by  nature  a  suspicious 
people,  but  political  unrest  is  prevalent  throughout 
the  East,  and  with  Bolshevists,  Chinese  agitators  and 
other  fomenters  of  disaffection  surreptitiously  at  work 
among  the  natives,  it  is  the  part  of  prudence  to  estab- 
lish your  respectability  at  the  start.  To  gain  a  friendly 
footing  with  the  authorities  is  to  save  yourself  from 
possible  annoyance  later  on. 

As  I  approached  the  shore  the  glamor  lent  by  dis- 
tance disappeared.  The  river-bank,  which  had 
looked  so  alluring  from  the  cutter's  deck,  proved  on 
closer  inspection  to  be  as  squalid  as  the  back-yard  of 
a  Neapolitan  tenement.  It  was  littered  with  dead  cats 


102  STRANGE  TRAILS 

and  fowls  and  fish  and  castaway  vegetables  and  rotten 
fruit  and  tin  cans  and  greasy  ashes  and  refuse  from 
fishing  nets  and  decaying  cocoanuts  by  the  million  and 
sodden  rags.  This  stewing  garbage  was  strewn  ankle- 
deep  upon  the  sand  or  was  floating  on  the  surface  of 
the  river,  not  drifting  seaward,  as  one  would  expect, 
but  languidly  following  the  tide  up  and  down,  forever 
lolling  along  the  bank.  Above  this  putrefying  feast 
swarmed  myriads  of  flies,  their  buzzing  combining  in 
a  drone  like  that  of  an  electric  fan.  The  sun  struck 
viciously  down  upon  the  yellow  foreshore,  its  glare 
reflected  by  the  hard-packed  sands  as  by  a  sheet  of 
brass;  the  heat-waves  danced  and  flickered.  Sending 
the  launch  back  to  the  cutter,  I  picked  my  way  across 
this  noisome  place  to  the  shelter  of  the  trees  along  the 
road.  But  the  shade  that  had  appeared  so  inviting 
from  the  river  proved  as  illusory  as  everything  else. 
Grass?  There  was  none.  The  earth  was  baked  to 
the  hardness  of  asphalt. 

To  make  matters  worse,  I  found  that  I  had  landed 
too  far  down  the  beach.  The  building  that  I  had  as- 
sumed was  the  Residency  proved  to  be  the  Custom 
House.  The  Harbor  Master,  whom  I  encountered 
there,  seized  the  opportunity  to  present  me  with  a  bill 
for  a  hundred  guilders — something  over  forty  dollars 
— for  port  dues.  It  seemed  a  high  price  to  pay  for  the 
privilege  of  lying  in  the  stream,  a  quarter-mile  off- 
shore. In  all  the  Dutch  ports  at  which  we  touched  I 
noted  this  same  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  authori- 
ties to  charge  all  that  the  traffic  would  bear — and  then 


MAN-EATERS  AND  HEAD-HUNTERS  103 

some.  Foreign  vessels  are  rarely  seen  at  Samarinda, 
and  one  would  suppose  that  they  would  be  welcomed 
accordingly,  but  the  Dutch  are  a  business  people  and 
do  not  permit  sentiment  to  interfere  with  a  chance  to 
make  a  few  honest  guilders. 

The  Residency,  I  found  upon  inquiry,  was  two  miles 
away,  in  the  outskirts  of  the  town.  And,  as  there  are 
neither  rickshaws  nor  carriages  for  hire  in  Samarinda, 
I  was  compelled  to  walk.  It  was  really  too  hot  to 
move.  In  five  minutes  my  clothes  were  as  wet  as 
though  I  had  fallen  in  the  river.  The  green  silk 
lining  of  my  sun-hat  crocked  and  ran  down  my  face  in 
emerald  rivulets.  When  I  had  covered  half  the  dis- 
tance I  paused  beneath  a  waringin  tree  to  rest.  A 
breath  of  breeze  from  the  river,  sighing  through  the 
palms,  brought  to  my  streaming  cheeks  a  hint  of  cool- 
ness and  to  my  nostrils  more  than  a  hint  of  the  gar- 
bage broiling  on  the  beach.  Anyone  who  could  be  ro- 
mantic in  Borneo  must  be  in  love. 

The  Assistant  Resident,  Monsieur  de  Haan,  was 
as  glad  to  see  me  as  a  banker  away  from  home  is  to  see 
a  copy  of  The  Wall  Street  Journal.  I  brought  him  a 
whiff  of  that  great  outside  world  from  which  he  was 
an  exile,  with  whose  doings  he  kept  in  touch  only 
through  the  meager  despatches  in  the  papers  brought 
by  the  fortnightly  mail-boat  from  Java,  or  through 
occasional  travelers  like  myself.  Dutch  officials  in 
the  Indies  can  obtain  leave  only  once  in  ten  years  and 
Monsieur  de  Haan  had  not  visited  the  mother  coun- 
try for  nearly  a  decade,  so  that  when  he  learned  I 


104  STRANGE  TRAILS 

had  recently  been  in  Holland  he  was  pathetically 
eager  to  hear  the  gossip  of  the  homeland.  For  an 
hour  I  lounged  in  a  Cantonese  chair  beneath  the 
leisurely  swinging  punkah — the  motive  power  for 
the  punkah  being  provided  by  a  native  on  the 
verandah  outside,  who  mechanically  pulled  the 
cord  even  while  he  slept — and  chatted  of  homely 
things:  of  a  restaurant  which  we  both  knew  on  the 
Dam  in  Amsterdam,  of  bathing  on  the  sands  of  Schev- 
iningen,  of  band  concerts  on  summer  evenings  in  the 
Haagsche  Bosch.  Only  when  his  long-pent  curiosity 
as  to  happenings  in  Europe  had  been  appeased  did  I 
find  an  opportunity  to  mention  the  reasons  which  had 
brought  me  to  Samarinda.  I  wished  to  go  up  country, 
I  explained.  I  wanted  to  see  the  real  jungle  and  the 
strange  tribes  which  dwell  in  it;  particularly  I  wished 
to  see  the  head-hunters.  Now  in  this  I  was  fully  pre- 
pared for  discouragement  and  dissuasion,  for  head- 
hunters  are  not  assets  to  a  country;  to  a  visitor  they 
are  not  displayed  with  pride.  When,  in  the  Philip- 
pines, I  wished  to  see  the  head-hunting  Igorots;  when 
I  asked  the  Japanese  for  permission  to  visit  the  head- 
hunters  of  Formosa,  I  met  only  with  excuses  and  eva- 
sions. At  my  taste  the  officials  pretended  to  be  sur- 
prised and  grieved.  But  Monsieur  de  Haan,  doubt- 
less because  he  had  lived  so  long  in  the  wilds  that  head- 
hunters  were  to  him  a  commonplace,  not  only  made 
no  objection,  he  even  offered  to  accompany  me. 

"We  can  go  up  the  Koetei  on  your  cutter,"   he 
suggested.     "It  is  navigable  as  far  as  Long  Iram,  two 


MAN-EATERS  AND  HEAD-HUNTERS  105 

hundred  miles  up-country,  which  is  the  farthest  point 
inland  that  one  of  our  garrisons  is  stationed.  Thus 
you  will  be  able  to  see  the  Dyak  country  as  com- 
fortably as  you  could  see  Holland  from  the  deck  of  a 
canal  boat.  On  our  way  we  might  pay  a  visit  to  the 
Sultan  of  Koetei,  who  has  a  palace  at  Tenggaroeng. 
Though  he  has  no  real  power  to  speak  of,  he  exer- 
cises considerable  influence  among  the  wild  tribes,  of 
which  he  is  the  hereditary  ruler.  He's  the  very  man 
to  put  you  in  touch  with  the  head-hunters." 

The  suggestion  sounded  fine.  Moreover,  in  visit- 
ing savages  as  temperamental  as  the  Dyaks,  there 
would  be  a  certain  comfort  in  having  the  head  of  the 
government  along.  So,  as  Monsieur  de  Haan  did  not 
appear  to  be  pressed  with  business,  we  arranged  to 
start  up-river  the  following  morning. 

It  was  late  afternoon  when  I  returned  to  the 
Negros.  I  was  completely  wilted  by  the  terrible 
humidity,  and,  as  the  river  looked  cool  and  inviting  in 
the  twilight,  I  decided  to  refresh  my  body  and  my 
spirits  by  a  swim.  But  when  I  suggested  to  the  Doc- 
tor that  he  join  me  he  shook  his  head  gloomily. 

"Nothing  doing,"  he  said.  "I've  been  wanting  to 
go  in  all  day  but  the  port  surgeon  tells  me  that  I'd  be 
committing  suicide." 

"But  why?"  I  demanded  irritably,  for  I  was  ill- 
tempered  from  the  heat.  "It's  perfectly  clean  out  here 
in  mid-stream  and  there  is  no  danger  from  sharks  here, 
as  there  was  at  Zamboanga  and  Jolo." 

By  way  of  replying  he  pointed  to  a  black  object, 


io6  STRANGE  TRAILS 

which  I  took  to  be  a  log,  that  was  floating  on  the 
surface  of  the  river,  perhaps  fifty  yards  off  the  cutter's 
gangway. 

"That's  why,"  he  said  dryly. 

As  he  spoke  a  dugout,  driven  by  half-a-dozen 
paddles  in  the  hands  of  lusty  natives,  came  racing  down 
stream.  As  the  canoe  drew  abreast  of  us,  the  paddlers 
chanting  a  barbaric  chorus,  there  was  a  sudden  swirl 
in  the  water  and  the  object  which  I  had  taken  for  a 
log  abruptly  dropped  out  of  sight. 

"A  crocodile!"  I  ejaculated,  a  little  shiver  chasing 
itself  up  and  down  my  spine. 

The  Doctor  nodded. 

"The  river  is  alive  with  them,"  he  said.  "Man- 
eaters,  too.  The  port  surgeon  told  me  that  they  get 
a  native  or  so  every  day." 

"I've  changed  my  mind  about  wanting  a  swim,"  I 
remarked,  heading  for  the  ship's  shower-bath. 


(Dusk  is  settling  on  the  great  river  and  the  palm 
fronds  are  gently  stirring  before  the  breeze  that  comes 
with  nightfall  on  the  Line.  If  you  have  nothing  better 
to  do,  suppose  you  sit  down  beside  me  in  a  deck-chair 
and  let  me  tell  you  something  about  these  cruel  and 
cunning  monsters  and  the  curious  methods  by  which 
they  are  captured.  Boy!  Pass  the  cheroots  and  bring 
us  something  cold  to  drink.) 

Though  crocodiles  are  found  everywhere  in  Malay- 
sia, they  attain  their  greatest  size  and  ferocity  in  the 


MAN-EATERS  AND  HEAD-HUNTERS  107 

rivers  of  Borneo,  it  being  no  uncommon  thing  for  them 
to  attack  and  capsize  the  frail  native  canoes,  killing 
their  occupants  as  they  flounder  in  the  water.  I  sup- 
pose that  the  crocodile  of  Borneo  more  nearly  ap- 
proaches the  giant  saurians  of  prehistoric  times  than 
anything  alive  to-day.  Imagine,  if  you  please,  a  crea- 
ture as  large  as  a  ship's  launch,  with  the  swiftness  and 
ferocity  of  a  man-eating  shark,  the  cunning  of  a  snake, 
a  body  so  heavily  armored  with  scales  that  it  is  impervi- 
ous to  everything  save  the  most  high-powered  bullets,  a 
tail  that  is  capable  of  knocking  down  an  ox,  and  a  pair 
of  jaws  that  can  cut  a  man  in  two  at  a  single  snap.  How 
would  you  like  to  encounter  that  sort  of  thing  when 
you  were  having  a  pleasant  swim,  I  ask  you?  Com- 
pared to  the  crocodile  of  Malaysia,  the  Florida  alli- 
gator is  about  as  formidable  as  a  lizard.  One  was 
captured  while  we  were  at  Sandakan  which  measured 
slightly  over  twenty-eight  feet  from  the  end  of  his  ugly 
snout  to  the  tip  of  his  vicious  tail.  Before  you  raise 
your  eyebrows  incredulously  you  might  take  a  look  at 
the  accompanying  photograph  of  this  monster.  Nor 
was  this  a  record  crocodile,  for,  shortly  before  our 
arrival  at  Samarinda,  one  was  caught  in  the  Koetei 
which  measured  ten  metres,  or  within  a  few  inches  of 
thirty-three  feet. 

The  crocodile  obtains  its  meals  by  the  simple  ex- 
pedient of  lying  motionless  just  beneath  the  surface  of 
a  pool  where  the  natives  are  accustomed  to  bathe  or 
where  they  go  for  water.  The  unsuspecting  brown 
girl  trips  jauntily  down  to  the  river-bank  to  fill  her 


io8  STRANGE  TRAILS 

amphora — usually  a  battered  Standard  Oil  tin.  As 
she  bends  over  the  stream  there  comes  without  the 
slightest  warning  the  lightning  swish  of  a  scaly  tail,  a 
scream,  the  crunch  of  monster  jaws,  a  widening  eddy, 
a  scarlet  stain  overspreading  the  surface  of  the  water 
— and  there  is  one  less  inhabitant  of  Borneo.  But  in- 
stead of  proceeding  to  devour  its  victim  then  and  there, 
the  crocodile  carries  the  body  up  a  convenient  creek, 
where  it  has  the  self-control  to  leave  it  until  it  is  suffi- 
ciently gamey  to  satisfy  its  palate.  For  the  crocodile, 
like  the  hunter,  does  not  like  freshly  killed  meat. 
Hence,  a  crocodile  swimming  up-stream  with  a  native 
in  its  mouth  is  by  no  means  an  uncommon  sight  on  Bor- 
ne an  rivers. 

"But  it  is  a  quick  death,"  as  an  Englishman  whom  I 
met  in  Borneo  philosophically  observed.  "They  don't 
play  with  you  as  a  cat  plays  with  a  mouse — they  just 
hold  you  under  the  water  until  you  are  drowned." 

Yet,  in  spite  of  the  hundreds  who  fall  victim  to  the 
terrible  jaws  each  year,  the  natives  seem  incapable  of 
observing  the  slightest  precautions.  For  superstitious 
reasons  they  will  not  disturb  the  crocodile  until  it  has 
shown  itself  to  be  a  man-eater.  If  the  crocodile  will 
live  at  peace  with  him  the  native  has  no  wish  to  start 
a  quarrel.  But  the  day  usually  comes  when  a  native 
who  has  gone  down  to  the  river  fails  to  return.  In 
America,  under  such  circumstances,  the  relatives  of 
the  missing  man  would  send  for  grappling  irons  and  an 
undertaker.  But  in  Borneo  they  summon  a  profes- 
sional crocodile  hunter.  The  idea  of  this  is  not  so 


MAN-EATERS  AND  HEAD-HUNTERS  109 

much  to  obtain  revenge  as  to  recover  the  brass  orna- 
ments which  the  dear  departed  was  wearing  at  the 
moment  of  his  taking  off,  for,  though  human  life  is 
the  cheapest  thing  there  is  in  Borneo,  brass  is  extremely 
dear. 

The  professional  crocodile  hunters  are  usually 
Malays.  One  of  the  best  known  and  most  successful 
in  Borneo  is  an  old  man  who  runs  a  ferry  across  the 
Barito  at  Bandjermasin.  He  has  capitalized  his  skill 
and  cunning  by  organizing  himself  into  a  sort  of  croco- 
dile liability  company,  as  it  were.  Anyone  may  secure 
a  policy  in  this  company  by  paying  him  a  weekly  pre- 
mium of  2^  Dutch  cents.  When  one  of  his  policy 
holders  is  overtaken  by  death  in  the  form  of  a  pair  of 
four-foot  jaws  the  old  man  turns  the  ferry  over  to  one 
of  his  children  and  sets  out  to  fulfill  the  terms  of  his 
contract  by  capturing  the  offending  saurian,  recovering 
from  its  stomach  the  weighty  bracelets,  anklets  and 
earrings  worn  by  the  deceased,  and  restoring  them  to 
the  next  of  kin.  In  order  to  make  good  he  sometimes 
has  to  kill  a  number  of  crocodiles,  but  he  keeps  on 
until  he  gets  the  right  one.  This  is  not  as  difficult  as 
it  sounds,  for  the  big  man-eaters  usually  have  their 
recognized  haunts  in  certain  deep  pools  in  the  rivers, 
many  of  them,  indeed,  being  known  to  the  natives  by 
name.  The  old  ferryman  at  Bandjermasin  has  been 
so  successful  in  the  conduct  of  his  curious  avocation 
that,  so  the  Dutch  Resident  assured  me,  he  has  several 
hundred  policy  holders  who  pay  him  their  premiums 


i  io  STRANGE  TRAILS 

with  punctilious  regularity,  thereby  giving  him  a  very 
comfortable  income. 

The  method  pursued  by  the  crocodile  hunters  of 
Borneo  is  as  effective  as  it  is  ingenious.  Their  fishing 
tackle  consists  of  a  hook,  which  is  a  straight  piece  of 
hard  wood,  about  the  size  of  a  twelve-inch  ruler,  sharp- 
ened at  both  ends ;  a  ten-foot  leader,  woven  from  the 
tough,  stringy  bark  of  the  baru  tree;  and  a  single 
length  of  rattan  or  cane,  fifty  feet  or  so  in  length, 
which  serves  as  a  line.  One  end  of  the  leader  is  at- 
tached to  a  shallow  notch  cut  in  the  piece  of  wood, 
the  other  end  is  fastened  to  the  rattan.  With  a  few 
turns  of  cotton  one  end  of  the  stick  is  then  lightly 
bound  to  the  leader,  thus  bringing  the  two  into  a 
straight  line.  Then  comes  the  bait,  which  must  be 
chosen  with  discrimination.  Though  the  body  of  a 
dog  or  pig  will  usually  answer,  the  morsel  that  most 
infallibly  tempts  a  crocodile  is  the  carcass  of  a  monkey. 
But  it  must  not  be  a  freshly  killed  monkey,  mind  you. 
A  crocodile  will  only  swallow  meat  that  is  in  an  ad- 
vanced stage  of  decomposition,  the  more  overpowering 
its  stench  the  greater  the  likelihood  of  the  bait  being 
taken.  The  bait  is  securely  lashed  to  the  pointed 
stick,  though  anyone  but  a  Malay  would  require  a 
gas-mask  to  perform  this  part  of  the  operation. 

Everything  now  being  ready,  the  bait  is  suspended 
from  the  bough  of  a  tree  overhanging  the  pool  which 
the  crocodile  is  known  to  frequent,  being  so  arranged 
that  the  carcass  swings  a  foot  or  so  above  the  surface 
of  the  stream  at  high  water  level,  the  end  of  the  rattan 


MAN-EATERS  AND  HEAD-HUNTERS  in 

being  planted  in  the  bank.  Lured  by  the  smell  of  the 
bait,  which  in  that  torrid  climate  quickly  acquires  a 
bouquet  which  can  be  detected  a  mile  to  leeward,  the 
crocodile  is  certain  sooner  or  later  to  thrust  its  long 
snout  out  of  the  water  and  snap  at  the  odoriferous 
bundle  dangling  so  temptingly  overhead,  the  slack  line 
offering  no  resistance  until  the  bait  has  been  swallowed 
and  the  brute  starts  to  make  off.  Then  the  man-eater 
gets  the  surprise  of  its  long  and  checkered  life,  for  the 
planted  end  of  the  rattan  holds  sufficiently  to  snap  the 
threads  which  bind  the  pointed  stick  to  the  leader.  The 
stick,  thus  caused  to  resume  its  original  position  at 
right  angles  to  the  line,  becomes  jammed  across  the 
crocodile's  belly,  the  pointed  ends  burying  themselves 
in  the  tender  abdominal  lining. 

The  next  morning  the  hunter  finds  bait  and  tackle 
missing,  but  a  brief  search  usually  reveals  the  coils  of 
rattan  floating  on  the  surface  of  some  deep  pool  at 
no  great  distance  from  the  spot  where  the  bait  was 
taken.  At  the  bottom  of  the  pool  Mr.  Crocodile  is 
writhing  in  the  throes  of  acute  indigestion.  Taking 
the  end  of  the  line  ashore,  the  hunter  summons  assist- 
ance. A  score  of  jubilant  natives  lay  hold  on  the  rat- 
tan. Then  ensues  a  struggle  that  makes  tarpon  fishing 
as  tame  in  comparison  as  catching  shiners.  At  first  the 
monster  tries  to  resist  the  straining  line,  its  tail  flail- 
ing the  water  into  foam.  The  great  jaws  close  on  the 
leader  like  a  bear-trap,  but  the  loosely  braided  strands 
of  baru  fiber  slip  between  the  pointed  teeth.  The 
leader  holds.  The  natives  haul  at  the  line  as  sailors 


ii2  STRANGE  TRAILS 

haul  at  a  halliard.  Soon  there  emerges  from  the 
churning  waters  a  long  and  incredibly  ugly  snout,  fol- 
lowed by  a  low,  reptilian  head,  with  venomous,  heavy- 
lidded,  scarlet  eyes,  a  body  as  broad  as  a  row-boat 
and  armored  with  horny  scales,  and  finally  a  tremen- 
dous tail,  twice  as  long  as  an  elephant's  trunk  and  twice 
as  powerful,  that  spells  death  for  any  human  being 
that  comes  within  its  reach.  Sometimes  it  happens  that 
the  hunters  momentarily  become  the  hunted,  for  the 
infuriated  beast,  catching  sight  of  its  enemies,  may 
come  at  them  with  a  rush  and  a  bellow,  but  more  often 
it  has  to  be  dragged  to  land,  fighting  every  inch  of 
the  way. 

Now  comes  the  most  hazardous  part  of  the  whole 
proceeding — the  securing  of  the  monster.  By  means 
of  a  noose,  deftly  thrown,  the  great  jaws  are  rendered 
harmless.  Another  noose  encircles  the  lashing  tail 
and  binds  it  securely  to  a  tree.  The  front  legs  are  next 
lashed  behind  the  back  and  the  hind  legs  treated  in 
the  same  fashion.  Thus  deprived  of  the  support  of 
its  legs,  the  crocodile  is  helpless  and  it  is  safe  to  release 
its  tail.  A  stout  bamboo  is  then  passed  between  the 
bound  legs  and  a  score  of  sweating  natives  bear  the 
captive  in  triumph  to  the  nearest  government  station, 
where  the  bounty  is  claimed.  The  crocodile  is  then 
killed,  the  stomach  cut  open  and  its  contents  examined, 
any  brassware  or  other  ornaments  worn  by  its  victim 
at  the  time  of  his  demise  being  handed  over  to  the 
heirs. 

The  method  of  fishing  pursued  by  the  Dyaks  of 


MAN-EATERS  AND  HEAD-HUNTERS  113 

Borneo  is  quite  as  curious,  in  its  way,  as  their  manner 
of  catching  crocodiles.  Instead  of  netting  the  fish,  or 
catching  them  with  hook  and  line,  they  asphyxiate 
them,  using  for  the  purpose  a  poison  obtained  from 
the  tuba  root,  known  to  scientists  as  Cocculus  indicus. 
When  a  Dyak  village  is  in  need  of  food  the  entire 
community,  men,  women  and  children,  repairs  to  a 
stream  in  which  fish  are  known  to  be  plentiful.  Across 
the  stream  a  sort  of  picket  fence  is  erected  by  planting 
bamboos  close  together.  In  the  center  of  this  fence  is 
a  narrow  opening  leading  into  an  enclosure  like  a 
corral,  the  walls  of  which  are  made  in  the  same  fash- 
ion. When  this  part  of  the  preparations  has  been 
completed  a  party  of  natives  proceeds  up-stream  by 
canoe  for  a  dozen,  or  more  miles,  taking  with  them 
a  plentiful  supply  of  tuba  root.  Early  the  next  morn- 
ing the  canoes  are  filled  with  water,  in  which  the  tuba 
root  is  beaten  until  the  water  is  as  white  and  frothy 
as  soapsuds.  When  a  sufficient  quantity  of  this  highly 
toxic  liquid  has  thus  been  obtained,  it  is  emptied  into 
the  stream  and,  after  a  brief  wait,  the  canoes  are  again 
launched  and  the  fishermen  drift  slowly  down  the  cur- 
rent in  the  wake  of  the  poison.  Many  of  the  fish  are 
stupefied  by  the  tuba  and,  as  they  rise  struggling  to  the 
surface,  are  speared  by  the  Dyaks.  Other,  seeking  to 
escape  the  poisonous  wave,  dart  down-stream  and, 
when  halted  by  the  barrier,  pour  through  the  opening 
into  the  corral,  where  they  are  captured  by  the  thou- 
sands. I  might  add  that  the  tuba  does  not  affect  the 
flesh  of  the  fish,  which  can  be  eaten  with  safety.  As  a 


ii4  STRANGE  TRAILS 

means  of  obtaining  food  in  wholesale  quantities  fishing 
with  tuba  is  perhaps  justified.  As  a  sport  it  is  in  the 
same  class  with  shooting  duck  from  airplanes  with  ma- 
chine-guns. 

Monsieur  de  Haan,  wearing  the  brass-buttoned 
white  uniform  and  gold-laced  conductor's  cap  which 
is  the  garb  prescribed  for  Dutch  colonial  officials,  came 
abroad  the  Negros  shortly  after  breakfast.  The  gang- 
way was  hoisted,  Captain  Galvez  gave  brisk  orders 
from  the  bridge,  there  was  a  jangle  of  bells  in  the 
engine-room,  and  we  were  off  up  the  Koetei,  into  the 
mysterious  heart  of  Borneo.  Above  Samarinda  the 
great  river  flows  between  solid  walls  of  vegetation. 
The  density  of  the  Bornean  jungle  is  indeed  almost  un- 
believable. It  is  a  savage  tangle  of  bamboos,  palms, 
banyans,  mangroves,  and  countless  varieties  of  shrubs 
and  giant  ferns,  the  whole  laced  together  by  trailers 
and  creepers.  Contrary  to  popular  belief,  there  is 
little  color  to  relieve  the  somber  monotony  of  dark 
brown  trunks  and  dark  green  foliage.  It  is  as  gloomy 
as  the  nave  of  a  cathedral  at  twilight.  Here  and  there 
may  be  seen  some  vine  with  scarlet  berries  and  many 
orchids  swing  from  the  higher  branches  like  incandes- 
cent globes  of  colored  glass.  But  it  is  usually  impos- 
sible for  one  on  the  ground  to  see  the  finest  blooms, 
which  turn  their  faces  to  the  sunlight  above  the  canopy 
of  green.  Gray  apes  chatter  in  the  tree-tops;  strange 
tropic  birds  of  gorgeous  plumage  flit  from  bough  to 
bough,  monstrous  reptiles  slip  silently  through  the 


MAN-EATERS  AND  HEAD-HUNTERS  115 

undergrowth ;  insects  buzz  in  swarms  above  the  putrid 
swamps;  occasionally  the  jungle  crashes  beneath 
the  tread  of  some  heavy  animal — a  rhinoceros,  per- 
haps, or  a  wild  bull,  or  an  orang-utan.  (I  might 
mention,  parenthetically,  that  orang-utan  means,  in 
the  Malay  language,  "man  of  the  forest,"  while 
orang-outang,  the  name  which  we  incorrectly  apply  to 
the  great  red-haired  anthropoid,  means  "man  in 
debt.")  The  Bornean  jungle  is  a  place  of  indescrib- 
able dismalness  and  dread,  its  gloom  seldom  dissipated 
by  the  sun,  its  awesome  silence  broken  only  by  the 
stirrings  of  the  unseen  creatures  which  lurk  underfoot 
and  overhead  and  all  around. 

The  palace  of  the  Sultan  of  Koetei  stands  in  the 
edge  of  the  jungle  at  a  horseshoe  bend  in  the  river. 
You  come  on  it  with  startling  abruptness — miles  and 
miles  of  primeval  wilderness  and  then,  quite  unex- 
pectedly, a  bit  of  civilization.  In  no  respect  does  its 
exterior  come  up  to  what  you  would  expect  the  palace 
of  an  Oriental  ruler  to  be.  It  is  a  great  barn  of  a  place, 
two  stories  in  height,  painted  a  bright  pink,  with  the 
arms  of  Koetei  emblazoned  above  the  entrance.  It  re- 
minded me  of  a  Coney  Island  dance  hall  or  one  of 
the  tabernacles  built  foi;  Billy  Sunday. 

A  broad  flight  of  white  marble  steps  leads  to  a 
wide,  covered  terrace  of  the  same  incongruous  ma- 
terial. This  terrace  opens  directly  into  the  great 
throne-hall,  a  lofty  apartment  of  impressive  propor- 
tions, though  its  furnishings  are  a  bizarre  mixture  of 
Oriental  taste  and  Occidental  tawdriness.  Its  marble 


n6  STRANGE  TRAILS 

floor  is  strewn  with  splendid  rugs  and  tiger-skins;  hang- 
ing from  the  ceiling  are  enormous  cut-glass  chandeliers; 
set  in  the  walls,  on  either  side  of  the  scarlet-and-gold 
throne,  are  life-size  portraits  of  the  present  Sultan's 
father  and  grandfather  done  in  glazed  Delft  tiles, 
which  seem  more  appropriate  for  a  bathroom  than  a 
throne-hall.  From  each  end  of  the  apartment  scarlet- 
carpeted  staircases,  with  gilt  balustrades,  lead  to  the 
second  floor.  Under  one  of  these  staircases  is  a  sort  of 
closet,  with  glass  doors,  which  looks  for  all  the  world 
like  a  large  edition  of  a  telephone  booth  in  an  American 
hotel.  The  doors  were  sealed  with  strips  of  paper 
affixed  by  means  of  wax  wafers,  but,  peering  through 
the  glass,  I  could  made  out  a  large  table  piled  high 
with  trays  of  precious  stones,  ingots  of  virgin  gold 
and  silver,  vessels,  utensils  and  images  of  the  same 
precious  metals.  It  was  the  state  treasure  of  Koetei 
and  was  worth,  so  the  Resident  told  me,  upward  of  a 
million  dollars. 

When  I  was  at  Tenggaroeng  the  young  Sultan,  an 
anaemic-looking  youth  in  the  early  twenties,  had  not 
yet  been  permitted  by  the  Dutch  authorities  to  ascend 
the  throne,  the  country  being  ruled  by  his  uncle,  the 
Regent,  an  elderly,  affable  gentleman  who,  in  his  white 
drill  suit  and  round  white  cap,  was  the  image  of  a 
Chinese  cook  employed  by  a  Californian  friend  of 
mine.  Upon  the  formal  accession  of  the  young  Sul- 
tan the  seals  of  the  treasury  would  be  broken,  I  was 
told,  and  the  treasure  would  be  his  to  spend  as  he  saw 
fit.  I  rather  imagine,  however,  that  the  Dutch  con- 


MAN-EATERS  AND  HEAD-HUNTERS  117 

troleur  attached  to  his  court  in  the  capacity  of  adviser 
will  have  something  to  say  should  the  youthful  mon- 
arch show  a  disposition  to  squander  his  inheritance. 

Up-stairs  we  were  shown  through  a  series  of  apart- 
ments filled  to  overflowing  with  the  loot  of  European 
shops — ornate  brass  beds,  inlaid  bureaus  and  chiffon- 
iers, toilet-sets  of  tortoise-shell  and  ivory,  washbowls 
and  pitchers  of  Sevres,  Dresden  and  Limoges,  garnish 
vases,  statuettes,  music-boxes,  mechanical  toys,  models 
of  all  ships  and  engines,  and  a  thousand  other  useless 
and  inappropriate  articles,  for,  when  the  late  Sultan 
paid  his  periodic  visits  to  Europe,  the  shopkeepers  of 
Paris,  Amsterdam  and  The  Hague  seized  the  oppor- 
tunity to  unload  on  him,  at  exorbitant  prices,  their  cost- 
liest and  most  unsalable  wares.  Opening  a  marquetry 
wardrobe,  the  Regent  displayed  with  great  pride  his 
collection  of  uniforms  and  ceremonial  costumes,  most 
of  which,  the  Resident  told  me,  had  been  copied  from 
pictures  which  had  caught  his  fancy  in  books  and  maga- 
zines. That  wardrobe  would  have  delighted  the  heart 
of  a  motion-picture  company's  property-man,  for  it  con- 
tained everything  from  a  Dutch  court  dress,  complete 
with  sword  and  feathered  hat,  to  a  state  costume  of 
sky-blue  broadcloth  edged  with  white  fur  and  trimmed 
with  diamond  buttons.  I  expressed  a  desire  to  see  the 
royal  crown,  for  I  had  noticed  that  the  pictures  of  for- 
mer sultans,  which  I  had  seen  in  the  throne-room, 
showed  them  wearing  crowns  of  a  peculiar  design,  strik- 
ingly similar  to  those  worn  by  the  Emperors  of  Abys- 
sinia. My  request  resulted  in  a  whispered  colloquy  be- 


n8  STRANGE  TRAILS 

tween  the  Resident,  the  Controleur,  the  Regent  and  the 
young  Sultan.  After  a  brief  discussion  the  Resident  ex- 
plained that  the  Controleur  kept  the  crown  locked  up  in 
his  safe,  but  that  he  would  get  it  if  I  wished  to  see  it. 
To  the  obvious  relief  of  everyone  except  the  young  Sul- 
tan I  assured  them  that  it  did  not  matter.  He  seemed 
distinctly  disappointed.  I  imagine  that  he  would  have 
liked  to  have  gotten  his  hands  on  it. 

Outside  the  palace — just  below  its  windows,  in  fact 
— is  a  long,  low,  dirt-floored,  wooden-roofed  shed, 
such  as  American  farmers  build  to  keep  their  wagons 
and  farm  machinery  under.  This  was  the  royal  ceme- 
tery. Beneath  it  the  former  rulers  of  Koetei  lie  buried, 
their  resting-places  being  marked  by  a  most  curious 
assortment  of  fantastically  carved  tombs  and  head- 
stones. Some  of  the  tombs  hold  the  ashes  of  men 
who  sat  on  the  throne  of  Koetei  when  it  was  one  of  the 
great  kingdoms  of  the  East,  long  before  the  coming 
of  the  white  man. 

Lady  luck  was  kind  to  me,  for  shortly  after  our  ar- 
rival at  Tenggaroeng  a  delegation  of  Dyaks  from  one 
of  the  tribes  of  the  far  interior  appeared  at  the  palace 
to  lay  some  tribal  dispute  before  the  Regent  for  his 
adjudication.  There  were  about  a  score  of  them,  in- 
cluding a  rather  comely  young  woman,  whose  comeli- 
ness was  somewhat  marred,  however,  according  to 
European  standards  at  least,  by  the  lobes  of  her  ears 
being  stretched  until  they  touched  her  shoulders  by  the 
great  weight  of  the  brass  earrings  which  depended 
from  them.  The  warriors  were  the  finest  physical 


MAN-EATERS  AND  HEAD-HUNTERS  119 

specimens  of  manhood  that  I  saw  in  all  Malaysia — tall, 
slim,  muscular,  magnificently  developed  fellows,  with 
bright,  rather  intelligent  faces.  They  had  the  broad 
shoulders  and  small  hips  of  Roman  athletes  and  when 
the  sun  struck  on  their  oiled  brown  skins  they  looked 
like  the  bronzes  in  a  museum.  Unlike  the  natives  we 
had  seen  along  the  coast,  whose  garments  made  a  slight 
concession  to  the  prejudices  of  civilization,  these  chil- 
dren of  the  wild  "wore  nothing  much  before  and  rather 
less  than  'arf  o'  that  be'ind."  Several  of  them  were 
armed  with  the  sumpitan,  or  blow-gun,  which  is  the  na- 
tional weapon  of  the  Dyaks,  and  each  of  them  carried 
at  his  waist  a  parang-Hang,  the  terrible  long-bladed 
knife  which  the  head-hunter  uses  to  kill  and  decapitate 
his  victims. 

Monsieur  de  Haan,  as  well  as  the  other  Dutch  offi- 
cials whom  I  questioned  on  the  subject,  attributed  the 
prevalence  of  head-hunting  in  Borneo  to  the  vanity  of 
the  Dyak  women.  He  explained  that,  just  as  Ameri- 
can girls  expect  candy  and  flowers  from  the  young  men 
who  are  attentive  to  them,  so  Dyak  maidens  expect 
freshly  severed  human  heads.  The  warrior  who  re- 
fused to  present  his  lady-love  with  such  grisly  evidences 
of  his  devotion  would  be  rejected  by  her  and  ostracized 
by  his  tribe.  Nor  does  head-hunting  end  with  marriage, 
for  the  standing  of  both  the  man  and  his  wife  in  the 
community  depends  upon  the  number  of  grinning  skulls 
which  swing  from  the  ridgepole  of  their  hut.  Heads 
are  to  a  Dyak  what  money  is  to  a  man  in  civilized 
countries — the  more  he  has,  the  greater  his  importance. 


120  STRANGE  TRAILS 

The  Controleur  at  Tenggaroeng  assured  me  very  ear- 
nestly that  his  Dyak  charges  were  by  no  means  fero- 
cious or  bloodthirsty  by  nature  and  that  they  practised 
head-hunting  less  from  pleasure  than  from  force  of  cus- 
tom. But  I  am  compelled  to  accept  such  an  estimate  of 
the  Dyak  character  with  reservations.  From  all  that  I 
could  learn,  head-hunting  is  a  sport,  like  fox-hunting  in 
England.  Nor  does  it,  as  a  rule,  involve  any  great  risk 
to  the  hunters,  for  the  head-hunting  raids  are  usually 
mere  butcheries  of  defenceless  people,  the  Dyaks  either 
stalking  their  victim  in  the  bush  and  killing  him  from 
behind,  or  attacking  a  village  when  the  warriors  are 
absent  and  slaughtering  everyone  whom  they  find  in  it 
— old,  men,  women,  and  children.  The  head  of  an 
orang-utan,  by  the  way,  is  as  highly  prized  in  many 
of  the  Dyak  tribes  as  that  of  a  human  being.  Nor  is 
this  surprising,  for  the  warrior  who  single-handed  can 
kill  one  of  the  mighty  anthropoids  is  deserving  of  the 
trophy. 

During  my  stay  in  Borneo  I  heard  many  theories  ad- 
vanced in  explanation  of  head-hunting.  Some  authori- 
ties claimed  that  it  is  the  Dyak's  way  of  establishing 
a  reputation  for  prowess.  Others  asserted  that  he 
takes  heads  merely  to  gratify  the  vanity  of  his  women. 
There  are  still  others  who  hold  the  opinion  that  the 
Dyak  believes  that  he  inherits  the  courage  and  cun- 
ning of  those  he  kills.  In  certain  of  the  Dyak  tribes  the 
heads  are  treated  with  profound  reverence,  being 
wreathed  with  flowers,  offered  the  choicest  morsels  of 
food,  and  sometimes  being  given  a  place  at  the  table, 


MAN-EATERS  AND  HEAD-HUNTERS  121 

while  in  other  tribes  they  are  hung  from  the  ridgepole 
and  displayed  as  trophies  of  the  chase.  My  own  opin- 
ion is  that,  though  prestige  and  vanity  and  supersti- 
tion all  contribute  to  the  prevalence  of  head-hunting, 
in  the  inherent  savagery  of  the  Dyak  is  found  the  true 
explanation  of  the  custom. 

I  have  already  made  passing  mention  of  that  charac- 
teristic weapon  of  the  Dyaks,  the  sumpitan,  or,  as  it  is 
called  by  foreigners,  the  blow-gun.  The  sumpitan  is 
a  piece  of  hard  wood,  from  six  to  eight  feet  in  length 
and  in  circumference  slightly  larger  than  the  handle 
of  a  broom.  Running  through  it  lengthwise  is  a  hole 
about  the  size  of  a  lead-pencil.  A  broad  spear-blade  is 
usually  lashed  to  one  end  of  the  sumpitan,  like  a  bayo- 
net, thus  providing  a  weapon  for  use  at  close  quarters. 
The  dart  is  made  from  a  sliver  of  bamboo,  or  from  a 
palm-frond,  scraped  to  the  size  of  a  steel  knitting- 
needle.  One  end  of  the  dart  is  imbedded  in  a  cork- 
shaped  piece  of  pith  which  fits  the  hole  in  the  sumpitan 
as  a  cartridge  fits  the  bore  of  a  rifle;  the  other  end, 
which  is  of  needle-sharpness,  is  smeared  with  a  paste 
made  from  the  milky  sap  of  the  upas  tree  dissolved  in 
a  juice  extracted  from  the  root  of  the  tuba.  With 
the  possible  exception  of  curare,  this  is  the  deadliest 
poison  known,  the  slightest  scratch  from  a  dart  thus 
poisoned  paralyzing  the  respiratory  center  and  causing 
almost  instant  death.  The  dart  is  expelled  from  the 
sumpitan  by  a  quick,  sharp  exhalation  of  the  breath. 
In  fact,  M.  de  Haan  told  me  that  among  certain  of 
the  Dyak  tribes  virtually  all  of  the  men  suffer  from 


122  STRANGE  TRAILS 

rupture  as  a  result  of  the  constant  use  of  the  blow- 
gun.  Though  I  have  heard  those  who  have  never 
seen  the  sumpitan  in  use  sneer  at  it  as  a  toy,  it  is,  at 
short  distances,  one  of  the  most  accurate  weapons  in 
existence  and,  when  its  darts  are  poisoned,  one  of  the 
deadliest.  In  order  to  show  me  what  could  be  done 
with  the  sumpitan,  the  Regent  stuck  in  the  earth  a 
bamboo  no  larger  than  a  woman's  little  finger,  and  a 
Dyak,  taking  up  his  position  at  a  distance  of  thirty 
paces  which  I  stepped  off  myself,  hit  the  almost  indis- 
tinguishable mark  with  his  darts  twelve  times  running. 
That,  as  the  late  Colonel  Cody  would  have  put  it,  "is 
some  shooting." 

In  Borneo  the  use  of  the  blow-gun  is  not  confined  to 
the  Dyaks.  They  are  also  used  by  fish!  That  is  to 
say,  by  a  certain  species  of  fish.  This  fish,  which  is  re- 
markable neither  in  size  nor  color,  seldom  being  larger 
than  our  domestic  goldfish,  is  known  to  the  natives  as 
ikan  sumpit  (literally  "fish  with  a  sumpitan")  and  to 
science  as  Toxodes  jaculator.  But  it  is  unique  among 
the  finny  tribe  in  possessing  the  curious  power,  on  corn- 
ing to  the  surface,  of  being  able  to  squirt  from  its 
mouth  a  tiny  jet  of  water.  This  it  uses  with  unerring 
aim  against  insects,  such  as  flies,  grasshoppers  and 
spiders,  resting  on  plants  along  the  edge  of  the  streams, 
causing  them  to  fall  into  the  water,  where  they  be- 
come an  easy  prey  to  these  Dyaks  of  the  deep.  It  was 
lucky  for  us  that  the  crocodiles  were  not  armed  with 
blow-guns  I 

When  Latins  engage  in  a  serious  quarrel  they  are 


MAN-EATERS  AND  HEAD-HUNTERS  123 

prone  to  decide  it  with  the  stiletto,  or,  if  they  belong 
to  the  class  which  subscribes  to  the  code,  they  meet 
on  the  field  of  honor  with  rapiers  or  pistols;  Anglo- 
Saxons  are  accustomed  to  settle  their  disputes  in  a 
court  of  law  or  with  their  fists;  but  when  Dyaks  be- 
come involved  in  a  controversy  which  cannot  be  ad- 
justed by  the  tribal  council,  they  have  recourse  to  the 
s'lam  ayer,  or  trial  by  water.  This  curious  method  of 
deciding  disputes  is  conducted  with  great  formality, 
according  to  the  rules  of  an  established  code.  For 
example,  should  two  husky  young  head-hunters  become 
involved  in  a  lovers'  quarrel  over  a  village  belle — the 
lobes  of  whose  ears  are  probably  pulled  down  to  her 
shoulders  by  the  weight  of  her  brass  earrings — they 
adjourn,  with  their  seconds  and  their  friends,  to  what 
might  appropriately  be  called  the  pool  of  honor.  Al- 
most any  place  where  there  are  four  or  five  feet  of  wa- 
ter will  do.  Into  the  bottom  of  the  pool  the  seconds 
drive  two  stout  bamboo  poles,  a  few  yards  apart.  The 
rivals  then  wade  out  into  the  water  and  take  up  their 
positions,  each  grasping  a  pole.  At  a  signal  from  the 
chief  who  is  acting  as  umpire  they  plunge  beneath  the 
water,  each  duelist  keeping  his  nostrils  closed  with  one 
hand  while  with  the  other  he  clings  to  the  pole  so  as  to 
keep  his  head  below  the  surface.  As  both  of  them 
would  drown  themselves  rather  than  acknowledge  de- 
feat by  coming  to  the  surface  voluntarily,  at  the  first 
sign  either  of  the  two  gives  of  being  asphyxiated,  the 
seconds,  who  are  watching  their  principals  closely,  drag 
the  rivals  from  the  water.  They  are  then  held  up  by 


I24  STRANGE  TRAILS 

the  heels,  head  downward,  in  order  to  drain  off  the 
water  they  have  swallowed,  the  one  who  first  recovers 
consciousness  being  declared  the  victor  and  awarded 
the  hand  of  the  lady  fair.  It  is  a  quaint  custom. 

As  I  have  no  desire  to  strain  your  credulity  to  the 
breaking-point,  I  will  touch  on  only  one  more  Dyak 
custom — the  disposal  of  the  dead.  It  seems  a  fitting 
subject  with  which  to  bring  this  account  of  the  wild 
men  to  a  close.  Certain  of  the  Dyak  tribes  expose 
their  dead  in  trees,  some  burn  them,  while  still  others 
bury  them  until  the  flesh  has  disappeared,  when  they 
exhume  the  skeletons,  disarticulate  them,  and  seal  the 
bones  in  the  huge  jars  of  Chinese  porcelain  which  are 
a  Dyak's  most  prized  possession.  Sometimes  these 
burial-jars  are  kept  in  the  family  dwelling — a  rather 
gruesome  article  of  furniture  to  the  European 
mind — but  more  often  they  are  deposited  in  a 
grave-house,  a  small,  fantastically  decorated  hut  or 
shed  which  serves  as  a  family  vault.  But  I  doubt  if 
any  people  on  the  face  of  the  globe  have  so  weird  a 
custom  of  disposing  of  their  dead  as  the  Kapuas  of 
Central  Borneo,  who  hollow  out  the  trunk  of  a  grow- 
ing tree  and  in  the  space  thus  prepared  insert  the  corpse 
of  the  departed.  The  bark  is  carefully  replaced  over 
the  opening  and  the  tree  continues  to  grow  and  flourish 
— literally  a  living  tomb. 

Noticing  that  I  was  interested  in  the  equipment  of 
the  Dyaks,  the  Regent  of  Koetei  called  up  their  chief 
and,  without  so  much  as  a  by-your-leave,  presented  me 
with  his  sumpitan  and  the  quiver  of  poisoned  darts,  his 


Major  Powell  talking  to  the  Regent  of  Koetei  on  the  steps  of  the 
palace  at  Tenggaroeng 

From  left  to  right:  the  regent,  Major  Powell,  the  prime  minister,  the  Sultan  of  Koetei  (who  has 
since  ascended  the  throne),  and  the  Dutch  resident,  M.  de  Haan 


State  procession  in  the  Kraton  of  the  Sultan  of  Djokjakarta 


MAN-EATERS  AND  HEAD-HUNTERS  125 

wooden  shield — a  long,  narrow  buckler  of  some  light 
wood,  tastily  trimmed  with  seventy-two  tufts  of  human 
hair,  mementoes  of  that  number  of  enemies  slain  on 
head-hunting  expeditions — a  peculiar  coat  of  mail,  com- 
posed of  overlapping  pieces  of  bark,  capable  of  turn- 
ing an  arrow,  and  his  imposing  head-dress,  which  con- 
sisted of  a  cap  formed  from  a  leopard's  head,  with  a 
sort  of  visor  made  from  the  beak  of  a  hornbill,  the 
whole  surmounted  by  a  bunch  of  yard-long  tail-feathers 
from  some  bright-plumaged  bird.  When  the  presen- 
tation was  concluded  all  the  chieftain  had  left  was  his 
breech-clout.  He  did  not  share  in  my  enthusiasm. 
From  the  murderous  glance  which  he  shot  at  me  when 
the  Regent  was  not  looking,  I  judged  that  if  he  ever 
met  me  alone  in  the  jungle  he  would  get  his  shield  back, 
with  another  scalp  to  add  to  his  collection.  And  I 
could  guess  whose  head  that  scalp  would  come  from. 


CHAPTER  VI 

IN  BUGI   LAND 

THE  Negros  was  not  fast — thirteen  knots  was 
about  the  best  she  could  do — so  that  it  took  us  two 
days  to  cross  from  Samarinda,  in  Borneo,  to  Makas- 
sar, the  capital  of  the  Celebes.  Our  course  took  us 
within  sight  of  "the  Little  Paternosters,  as  you  come 
to  the  Union  Bank,"  where,  as  you  may  remember, 
Sir  Anthony  Gloster,  of  Kipling's  ballad  of  The  Mary 
Gloster,  was  buried  beside  his  wife.  Before  our 
hawsers  had  fairly  been  made  fast  to  the  wharf  at 
Makassar  it  became  evident  that  among  the  natives 
our  arrival  had  created  a  distinct  sensation.  The 
wharf  was  crowded  with  Bugis,  as  the  natives  of  the 
southern  Celebes  are  known,  who  tried  in  vain  to  make 
themselves  understood  by  our  Filipino  crew.  Instead 
of  the  boisterous  curiosity  which  had  marked  the  atti- 
tude of  the  natives  at  the  other  ports,  the  Bugis  ap- 
peared to  be  laboring  under  a  suppressed  but  none  the 
less  evident  excitement.  When  I  went  ashore  to  call 
on  the  American  Consul  they  made  way  for  me  with  a 
respect  which  verged  on  reverence.  This  curious  atti- 
tude was  explained  by  the  Consul. 

"Your  coming  has  revived  among  the  natives  a  very 
curious  and  ancient  legend,"  he  told  me.  "When  the 

126 


IN  BUGI  LAND  127 

Dutch  established  their  rule  in  the  Celebes,  something 
over  three  centuries  ago,  the  King  of  the  Bugis  mys- 
teriously disappeared.  Whether  he  fled  or  was  killed 
in  battle,  no  one  knows.  In  any  event,  from  his  dis- 
appearance arose  a  tradition  that  he  had  founded 
another  kingdom  in  some  islands  far  to  the  north,  but 
that,  when  the  time  was  propitious,  he  would  return  to 
free  his  people  from  foreign  domination.  Thus  he 
came  in  time  to  be  regarded  as  a  divinity,  a  sort  of 
Messiah.  Curiously  enough,  the  natives  refer  to  him 
by  a  name  which,  translated  into  English,  means  'the! 
King  of  Manila.'  Some  months  ago  it  was  reported 
in  the  Makassar  papers  that  the  Governor-General  of 
the  Philippines  expected  to  visit  the  Celebes  upon  his 
way  to  Australia,  whereupon  the  rumor  spread  among 
the  Bugis  like  wild-fire  that  'the  King  of  Manila'  was 
about  to  return  to  his  ancient  kingdom,  but  the  excite- 
ment gradually  subsided  when  the  Governor-General 
failed  to  appear.  But  when  the  Negros  entered  the 
harbor  this  morning,  and  it  was  reported  that  she  was 
from  Manila  and  had  on  board  a  white  man  who  had 
some  mysterious  mission  in  the  interior  of  the  island, 
the  excitement  flamed  up  again.  The  natives,  you  see, 
who  are  as  simple  and  credulous  as  children,  believe 
that  you  are  the  Messiah  of  their  legend  and  that  you 
have  come  to  liberate  them  from  Dutch  rule."  * 

*  Owing  to  my  ignorance  of  Dutch  and  Buginese,  I  was  unable 
to  obtain  a  dependable  account  of  this  curious  legend,  but  the 
several  versions  which  I  heard  agreed  in  the  main  with  that  given 
above. 


128  STRANGE  TRAILS 

"But  look  here,"  said  I,  annoyance  in  my  tone,  "this 
isn't  as  funny  as  it  seems.  Tying  me  up  to  this  fool 
tradition  may  result  in  spoiling  my  plans  for  taking 
pictures  in  the  Celebes.  Of  course  the  Dutch  authori- 
ties know  perfectly  well  that  I  haven't  come  here  to 
start  a  revolution,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  they  may 
not  want  a  person  whom  the  natives  regard  as  a  Mes- 
siah to  go  wandering  about  in  the  interior,  where 
Dutch  rule  is  none  too  firmly  established  anyway,  for 
fear  that  my  presence  might  be  used  as  an  excuse  for 
an  insurrection." 

"Don't  let  that  worry  you,"  the  Consul  reassured 
me.  "I'll  take  you  over  now  to  call  on  the  Governor. 
He's  a  good  sort  and  he'll  do  everything  he  can  to  help 
you.  Then  I'll  send  the  editors  of  the  vernacular 
papers  around  to  the  Negros  this  afternoon  to  call  on 
you.  You  can  explain  that  you're  here  to  get  motion- 
pictures  to  illustrate  the  progress  and  prosperity  of  the 
Celebes,  and  it  might  be  a  good  idea  to  tell  them  that 
some  of  your  ancestors  were  Dutch.  That  will  help  to 
make  you  solid  with  the  authorities.  The  interview 
will  appear  in  the  papers  tomorrow  and  in  twenty- 
four  hours  the  news  will  have  spread  among  the  Bugis 
that  you're  not  their  Messiah  after  all." 

"But  I'm  not  Dutch,"  I  protested.  "All  my  people 
were  Welsh  and  English.  The  only  connection  I  have 
with  Holland  is  that  the  house  in  which  I  was  born  is 
on  a  street  that  has  a  Dutch  name." 

"Fine!"  he  exclaimed  enthusiastically.  "Born  on 
Van  Rensselaer  street,  you  say?  Be  sure  and  tell  'em 


IN  BUGI  LAND  129 

that.  That's  the  next  best  thing  to  having  been  born 
in  Holland." 

"I  know  now,"  I  said,  "how  it  feels  to  refuse  a 
throne." 

At  tiffin  that  noon  on  the  Negros  I  told  the  story  to 
the  others.  "So  you  see,"  I  concluded,  "if  I  had  been 
willing  to  take  a  chance,  I  might  have  been  King  of 
the  Bugis." 

"They  wouldn't  have  called  you  that  at  home,"  the 
Lovely  Lady  said  unkindly.  "There  they  would  have 
called  you  the  King  of  the  Bugs." 

Nature  must  have  created  Celebes  in  a  capricious 
moment,  such  a  medley  of  bold  promontories,  jutting 
peninsulas,  deep  gulfs  and  curving  bays  does  its  outline 
present.  Indeed,  its  coast  line  is  so  irregular  and  so 
deeply  indented  by  the  three  great  gulfs  or  bays  of 
Tomini,  Tolo,  and  Boni  that  it  is  small  wonder  that 
the  first  European  explorers  assumed  it  was  a  group 
of  islands  and  gave  it  the  name  of  plural  form  which 
still  perpetuates  the  very  natural  mistake.  Its  length 
is  roughly  about  five  hundred  miles  but  its  width  is 
so  varying  that  while  it  is  over  a  hundred  miles  across 
the  northern  part  of  the  island  at  the  middle  it  is  a 
scant  twenty  miles  from  coast  to  coast. 

Though  the  census  of  1905  gave  the  population  of 
the  island  as  less  than  nine  hundred  thousand,  the  latest 
official  estimate  places  it  at  about  three  millions.  The 
actual  number  of  inhabitants  is  probably  midway  be- 
tween these  figures.  But,  to  tell  the  truth,  the  tempera- 


130  STRANGE  TRAILS 

ment  of  the  savages  who  inhabit  the  interior  is  not  con- 
ducive to  an  accurate  enumeration,  the  Dutch  census- 
takers  being  greeted  with  about  the  same  degree  of 
cordiality  that  the  moonshiners  of  the  Kentucky  moun- 
tains extend  to  United  States  revenue  agents. 

The  three  most  important  peoples  of  Celebes  are 
the  Bugis,  the  Makassars,  and  the  Mandars.  The 
medley  of  more  or  less  savage  tribes  dwelling  in  the 
island  are  known  as  Alfuros — literally  "wild" — which 
is  the  term  applied  by  the  Malays  to  all  the  uncivilized 
non-Mohammedan  peoples  in  the  eastern  part  of  the 
archipelago.  For  the  Bugis  to  refer  to  the  tribes  of 
the  interior  as  wild  is  like  the  pot  calling  the  kettle 
black.  The  Bugis,  a  passionate,  half-savage,  ex- 
tremely revengeful  people,  originally  occupied  only  the 
kingdom  of  Boni,  in  the  southwestern  peninsula,  but 
from  this  district  they  have  spread  over  the  whole  of 
Celebes  and  have  founded  settlements  on  many  of  the 
adjacent  islands.  They  are  the  seamen  of  the  archi- 
pelago, the  greatest  navigators  and  the  most  enter- 
prising tradesmen,  and  were,  in  times  gone  by,  the 
greatest  pirates  as  well.  In  fact,  the  harbor  master  at 
Makassar  told  us  that  the  crews  of  many  of  the  rakish 
looking  sailing  craft  which  were  anchored  in  close 
proximity  to  the  Negros  were  reformed  buccaneers. 
Certainly  they  looked  it.  They  may  have  reformed, 
but  that  did  not  prevent  Captain  Galvez  from  doubling 
the  deck-watch  at  night  while  we  were  in  Celebes 
waters.  He  believed  in  safety  first. 

The  Winsome  Widow  had  been  very  enthusiastic 


Some  strange  subjects  of  Queen  Wilhelmina 
Native  women  of  the  interior  of  Dutch  Borneo 


IN  BUGI  LAND  131 

about  going  to  the  Celebes  because  Makassar  is  the 
greatest  market  in  the  world  for  those  ornaments  so 
dear  to  the  feminine  heart — bird-of-paradise  plumes.  I 
explained  to  her  that  it  vas  against  the  law  to  bring 
them  into  the  United  States,  but  no  matter,  she  wanted 
to  buy  some.  To  visit  Makassar  without  buying  bird- 
of-paradise  plumes,  she  said,  would  be  like  visiting  Ja- 
pan without  buying  a  kimono.  The  bird  is  usually  sold 
entire,  the  prices  ranging  from  twenty-five  to  thirty 
dollars,  according  to  size  and  condition,  though,  owing 
to  the  ruthless  slaughter  of  the  birds  to  meet  the  de- 
mands of  the  European  market,  prices  are  steadily  ad- 
vancing. The  Winsome  Widow  bought  four  of  the 
finest  birds  I  have  ever  seen — gorgeous,  flame-colored 
things  with  plumes  nearly  two  feet  long.  How  she  pro- 
posed getting  them  into  the  United  States  she  did  not 
tell  me,  and  I  thought  it  as  well  not  to  ask  her.  She 
had  them  carefully  packed  in  a  wooden  box  made  for 
the  purpose  which  she  did  not  open  until  nearly 
two  months  later,  when  we  were  steaming  down  the 
coast  of  Siam  on  a  cargo  boat,  long  after  I  had  sent  the 
Negros  back  to  Manila.  Imagine  her  feelings  when, 
upon  opening  the  box  to  feast  her  eyes  on  her  contra- 
band treasures,  she  found  it  to  contain  nothing  but 
waste  paper!  I  suspect  that  the  sweetheart  of  one  of 
our  Filipino  cabin-boys  is  now  wearing  a  hat  fairly 
smothered  in  bird-of-paradise  plumes. 

The  Bugis'  love  of  the  sea  has  given  them  almost  a 
monopoly  of  the  trade  around  Celebes.  Despite  their 
fierce  and  warlike  dispositions  they  are  industrious  and 


I32  STRANGE  TRAILS 

ingenious — qualities  which  usually  do  not  go  together; 
they  practise  agriculture  more  than  the  neighboring 
tribes  and  manufacture  cotton  cloth  not  only  for  their 
own  use  but  for  export.  They  also  drive  a  thriving 
trade  in  such  romantic  commodities  as  gold  dust,  tor- 
toise shell,  pearls,  nutmegs,  camphor,  and  bird-of- 
paradise  plumes.  They  dwell  for  the  most  part  in 
walled  enclosures  known  as  kampongs,  in  flimsy  houses 
built  of  bamboo  and  thatched  with  grass  or  leaves. 
But  as  diagonal  struts  are  not  used  the  walls  soon  lean 
over  from  the  force  of  the  wind,  giving  to  the  villages 
a  curiously  inebriated  appearance.  In  several  of  the 
eight  petty  states  which  comprise  the  confederation  of 
Boni  the  ruler  is  not  infrequently  a  woman,  the  female 
line  having  precedence  over  the  male  line  in  succession 
to  the  throne.  The  women  rulers  of  the  Bugis  have 
invariably  shown  themselves  as  astute,  capable  and 
warlike  as  the  men,  the  princess  who  ruled  in  Boni 
during  the  middle  of  the  last  century  having  defeated 
three  powerful  military  expeditions  which  the  Dutch 
sent  against  her.  Everything  considered,  the  Bugis 
are  perhaps  the  most  interesting  race  in  the  entire 
archipelago. 

The  Bugis  are  said  to  be  more  predisposed  toward 
"running  amok"  than  any  other  Malayan  people. 
Having  been  warned  of  this  unpleasant  idiosyncrasy, 
I  took  the  precaution,  when  among  them,  of  carrying 
in  the  right-hand  pocket  of  my  jacket  a  service  auto- 
matic, loaded  and  ready  for  instant  action.  For  when 
a  Bugi  runs  amok  he  will  almost  certainly  get  you 


IN  BUGI  LAND  133 

unless  you  get  him  first.  Running  amok,  I  should 
explain,  is  the  native  term  for  the  homicidal  mania 
which  attacks  Malays.  Without  the  slightest  warn- 
ing, and  apparently  without  reason,  a  Malay,  armed 
with  a  kris  or  other  weapon,  will  rush  into  the  street 
and  slash  at  everybody,  friends  and  strangers  alike, 
until  he  is  killed.  These  frenzies  were  formerly  re- 
garded as  due  to  sudden  insanity,  but  it  is  now  believed 
that  the  typical  amok  is  the  result  of  excitement  due 
to  circumstances,  such  as  domestic  jealousy  or  gamb- 
ling losses,  which  render  the  man  desperate  and  weary 
of  life.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  Malay  equivalent  of  suicide. 
Though  so  intimately  associated  with  the  Malay,  there 
are  good  grounds  for  believing  the  word  to  have  an 
Indian  origin.  Certainly  the  act  is  far  from  unknown 
in  Indian  history.  In  Malabar,  for  example,  it  was 
long  the  custom  for  the  zamorin  or  king  of  Calicut  to 
cut  his  throat  in  public  after  he  had  reigned  twelve 
years.  But  in  the  seventeenth  century  there  was  inaug- 
urated a  variation  in  this  custom.  After  a  great  feast 
lasting  for  nearly  a  fortnight  the  ruler,  surrounded  by 
his  bodyguard,  had  to  take  his  seat  at  a  national  as- 
sembly, on  which  occasion  it  was  lawful  for  anyone  to 
attack  him,  and,  if  he  succeeded  in  killing  him  the 
murderer  himself  assumed  the  crown.  In  the  year 
1600,  it  is  recorded,  thirty  men  who  would  be  king  were 
killed  while  thus  attempting  to  gain  the  throne.  These 
men  were  called  Amar-khan,  and  it  has  been  suggested 
that  their  action  was  "running  amok"  in  the  true  sense 
of  the  term.  From  this  it  would  appear  that  a  king  of 


134  STRANGE  TRAILS 

Calicut  was   about  as  good   an   insurance  risk   as   a 
president  of  Haiti. 

The  act  of  running  amok  is  probably  due  to  causes 
over  which  the  culprit  has  some  measure  of  control,  as 
the  custom  has  now  virtually  died  out  in  the  Philip- 
pines and  in  the  British  possessions  in  Malaysia,  owing 
to  the  drastic  measures  adopted  by  the  authorities. 
Among  the  Mohammedans  of  the  southern  Philip- 
pines, where  the  custom  is  known  as  juramentado,  it 
was  discouraged  by  burying  the  carcass  of  a  pig — an 
animal  abhorred  by  all  Moslems — in  the  grave  with 
the  body  of  the  assassin.  When  I  was  in  Jolo  the 
governor  told  me  of  a  novel  and  highly  effective 
method  which  had  been  adopted  by  the  officer  com- 
manding the  American  forces  in  that  island  for  dis- 
couraging the  custom.  A  number  of  American  sol- 
diers had  been  killed  by  Moros  running  amok.  The 
American  commander  took  up  the  matter  with  the 
local  priests  but  they  only  shrugged  their  shoulders 
with  true  Oriental  stoicism,  saying  that  when  a  man 
went  juramentado  it  was  the  will  of  Allah  and  that 
nothing  could  be  done.  The  next  day  an  American 
soldier,  a  revolver  in  either  hand,  burst  into  a  Moro 
village,  notorious  for  its  juramentados,  firing  at  every- 
one whom  he  saw  and  yelling  like  a  mad  man.  The  ter- 
rified villagers  took  to  the  bush,  where  they  remained 
in  fear  and  trembling  until  the  crazy  Americano  had 
taken  his  departure.  That  evening  the  village  priests 
appeared  at  headquarters  to  complain  to  the  American 
commander. 


IN  BUGI  LAND  135 

"But  Americans  have  just  as  much  right  to  go 
juramentado  as  the  Moros,"  said  the  general.  "I  can 
do  nothing.  The  man  is  not  responsible.  It  is  the 
will  of  Allah."  That  was  the  end  of  juramentado  in 
Jolo. 

The  wharves  and  godowns  which  line  Makassar's 
water-front  form  an  unattractive  screen  to  a  pic- 
turesque and  charming  town.  Though,  owing  to  its 
commercial  importance  as  a  half-way  station  on  the 
road  from  Asia  to  Australia,  Makassar  promises  to 
become  a  second  Singapore,  it  has  as  yet  neither  an 
electric  lighting,  gas,  nor  water  system.  It  is,  however, 
very  beautifully  laid  out,  the  streets,  which  are  broad 
and  well-kept,  being  lined  by  double  rows  of  mag- 
nificent canarium  trees  or  tamarinds,  whose  branches 
interlace  high  overhead  in  a  canopy  of  green.  The 
European  life  of  Makassar  centers  in  the  great  grass- 
covered  pletn,  or  common,  where  band  concerts,  re- 
views, horse  races,  festivals,  and  similar  events  are 
held.  Facing  on  the  plein  is  the  palace  of  the  Gover- 
nor of  the  Celebes,  a  one-story,  porticoed  building 
with  white  walls  and  green  blinds,  in  the  Dutch  colo- 
nial style,  a  type  of  architecture  which  is  admirably 
adapted  to  the  tropics.  Next  to  the  palace  is  the 
Oranje  Hotel,  a  well-kept  and  comfortable  hostelry 
as  hotels  go  in  Malaysia.  On  its  terrace  the  home- 
sick Europeans  gather  toward  twilight  to  sip  advo- 
cat — a  drink  which  is  a  first  cousin  to  the  egg-nogg 


i36  STRANGE  TRAILS 

of  pre-Volstead  days,  very  popular  in  the  Indies — and 
to  listen  to  the  military  band  playing  on  the  plein. 

Diagonally  across  the  plein  rise  the  massive  walls 
of  Fort  Rotterdam,  erected  by  one  of  the  native  rulers, 
the  King  of  Goa,  with  the  assistance  of  the  Portuguese, 
when  the  seventeenth  century  was  still  in  its  infancy 
and  when  the  settlement  on  the  lower  end  of  Manhat- 
tan Island  was  still  called  Nieuw  Amsterdam.  The 
capture  of  the  fort  by  the  Dutch  in  1667  signalized  the 
passing  of  Portuguese  power  in  Asia.  Pass  the  sloven- 
ly native  sentry  at  the  outer  gate,  cross  the  creaking 
drawbridge,  and,  were  it  not  for  the  tropical  vegeta- 
tion and  the  oppressive  heat,  you  might  think  yourself 
in  the  Low  Countries  instead  of  a  few  degrees  below 
the  Line,  for  the  crenelated  ramparts,  the  shaded, 
gravelled  paths,  the  ancient  garrison  church,  the  of- 
ficers' quarters  with  their  steep-pitched,  red-tiled  roofs, 
make  the  interior  a  veritable  bit  of  Holland,  trans- 
planted to  a  tropic  island  half  the  world  away. 

Makassar  has  a  population  of  about  fifty  thousand, 
including  something  over  a  thousand  Europeans  and 
some  five  thousand  Chinese,  but  as  most  of  the  natives 
live  in  their  walled  kampongs  in  the  environs,  the  city 
appears  much  smaller  than  it  really  is.  The  retail 
trade  is  almost  wholly  in  the  hands  of  the  Chinese, 
many  of  whom  are  men  of  great  wealth  and  influ- 
ence. There  was  also  a  small  colony  of  Japanese, 
but,  as  a  result  of  the  boycott  which  the  Chinese 
had  instituted  against  them  in  reprisal  for  Japan's 
refusal  to  evacuate  Shantung,  they  were  unable  to 


IN  BUGI  LAND  13? 

find  markets  for  their  wares  or  to  obtain  employ- 
ment and,  in  consequence,  were  being  forced  to  leave 
the  island.  The  only  American  in  the  Celebes  when 
we  were  there  was  the  representative  of  the  Standard 
Oil  Company — a  desperately  homesick  youngster  from 
Missouri  who  had  been  a  lieutenant  of  aviation.  He 
introduced  himself  to  us  on  the  terrace  of  the  Oranje 
Hotel,  begged  the  privilege  of  buying  the  drinks,  and 
pleaded  with  an  eagerness  that  was  almost  pathetic 
for  the  latest  news  from  God's  Country.  At  almost 
every  place  of  importance  which  we  visited  in  Malaysia 
we  found  these  agents  of  Standard  Oil — alert  and 
clean-cut  young  fellows,  who,  far  from  home  and 
friends,  are  helping  to  build  up  a  commercial  empire  for 
America  oversea. 

The  native  soldiery,  who  form  the  bulk  of  the  Ma- 
kassar garrison,  are  quartered,  with  their  families,  in 
long,  stone  barracks — ten  couples  to  a  room.  For  every 
soldier  of  the  colonial  forces,  whether  European  or 
native,  is  permitted  to  keep  a  woman  in  the  barracks 
with  him.  If  she  is  the  soldier's  wife,  well  and  good, 
but  the  authorities  do  not  frown  if  the  couple  have 
omitted  the  formality  of  standing  up  before  a  clergy- 
man. The  rooms  in  which  the  soldiers  and  their  fami- 
lies live  have  no  partitions,  to  each  couple  being  as- 
signed a  space  about  eight  feet  square,  which  is  chalk- 
marked  on  the  floor.  The  only  article  of  furniture  in 
each  of  these  "apartments"  is  a  bed,  which  is  really_  a 
broad,  low  platform  covered  with  a  grass-mat,  for  in  a 
land  where  the  mercury  not  infrequently  climbs  to  1 20 


138  STRANGE  TRAILS 

in  the  shade,  there  is  no  need  for  bedding.  Here  they 
eat  and  sleep  and  make  their  toilets,  the  women  prepar- 
ing the  meals  for  their  men  and  for  themselves  in  ovens 
out-of-doors.  At  night  the  beds  may  be  separated  by 
drawing  the  flimsiest  of  cotton  curtains — the  only  con- 
cession to  privacy  that  I  could  discover.  As  Malays 
invariably  have  large  families,  the  barrack  room 
usually  has  the  appearance  of  a  day  nursery,  with 
naked  brown  youngsters  crawling  everywhere,  but  at 
night  they  are  disposed  of  in  fiber  hammocks  which 
are  slung  over  the  parents'  heads.  The  colonel  in 
command  at  Fort  Rotterdam  told  me  that  in  the  new 
type  of  barracks  which  were  being  built  in  Java  each 
family  would  be  assigned  a  separate  room,  but  he 
seemed  to  regard  such  provisions  for  privacy  as  wholly 
unnecessary  and  a  shameful  waste  of  money. 

The  military  authorities  not  only  permit,  but 
encourage  the  Dutch  soldiers  to  contract  alliances 
of  a  temporary  character  with  native  women  dur- 
ing their  term  of  service  in  the  Insulinde,  with  the 
idea,  no  doubt,  of  making  them  more  contented.  Dur- 
ing operations  in  the  field  the  women  and  children, 
instead  of  remaining  behind  in  barracks,  accompany 
the  troops  almost  to  the  firing-line,  a  custom  which, 
apparently,  does  not  interfere  with  efficiency  or  disci- 
pline. Indeed,  there  are  few  forces  of  equal  size  in 
the  world  which  have  seen  as  much  active  service  as 
the  army  of  Netherlands  India,  for  in  the  extension  of 
Dutch  dominion  throughout  the  archipelago  the  native 
rulers  rarely  have  surrendered  their  authority  without 


IN  BUGI  LAND  139 

fighting.  Though  the  newspapers  seldom  mention  it, 
Holland  is  almost  constantly  engaged  in  some  little  war 
in  some  remote  corner  of  her  Indian  empire,  in  cer- 
tain districts  of  Sumatra,  for  example,  fighting  having 
been  almost  continuous  these  many  years. 

Though  the  flag  of  Holland  was  first  hoisted  over 
the  Celebes  more  than  three  centuries  ago,  Dutch  com- 
mercial interests  are  still  virtually  confined  to  the  four 
chief  towns — Makassar,  '  Menado,  Gorontalo,  and 
Tondano — and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  interior 
of  the  island  is  known  to  be  immensely  rich  in  natural 
resources.  In  the  native  states  Dutch  authority  is  little 
more  than  nominal,  the  repeated  attempts  which  have 
been  made  to  subjugate  them  invariably  having  met 
with  discouragement  and  not  infrequently  with  disas- 
ter. Hence  the  island  is  still  without  railways,  though 
it  is  being  slowly  opened  up  by  means  of  roads,  some 
of  which  are  practicable  for  motor-cars.  Most  of  the 
roads  in  the  Celebes  were  originally  built  by  means  of 
the  Corvee,  or  forced  labor,  the  natives  being  com- 
pelled to  spend  one  month  out  of  the  twelve  in  road 
construction.  But,  though  they  were  taken  for  this 
work  at  a  season  when  they  could  best  be  spared  from 
their  fields,  it  was  an  enormous  tax  to  impose  upon  an 
agricultural  population,  resulting  in  grave  discontent 
and  in  seriously  retarding  the  development  of  the 
island.  For,  ever  since  Marshal  Daendels,  "the  Iron 
Marshal,"  who  ruled  the  Indies  under  Napoleon, 
utilized  forced  labor  to  build  the  splendid  eight-hun- 
dred-mile-long highway  which  runs  from  one  end  of 


i4o  STRANGE  TRAILS 

Java  to  the  other,  the  corvee  has  been  a  synonym  for 
unspeakable  cruelty  and  oppression  throughout  the 
Insulinde.  Each  dessa,  or  district,  through  which  the 
great  trans-Java  highway  runs  was  forced  to  construct, 
within  an  allotted  period,  a  certain  section  of  the  road, 
the  natives  working  without  pay  while  their  crops  rot- 
ted in  the  fields  and  their  families  starved.  As  a  final 
touch  of  tyranny,  the  grim  old  Marshal  gave  orders 
that  if  a  dessa  did  not  complete  its  section  of  the  road 
within  the  allotted  time  the  chiefs  of  that  district  were 
to  be  taken  out  and  hung. 

When  the  Dutch  determined  to  open  up  Celebes  by 
the  construction  of  a  highway  system  they  realized 
the  wisdom  of  obtaining  the  cooperation  of  the  native 
rulers.  But  when  they  outlined  their  scheme  to  the 
King  of  Goa,  the  most  powerful  chieftain  in  the  south- 
ern part  of  the  island,  they  encountered,  if  not  open 
opposition,  at  least  profound  indifference.  This  was 
scarcely  a  matter  for  surprise,  however,  for  the  King 
quite  obviously  had  no  use  for  roads,  first,  because  when 
he  had  occasion  to  journey  through  his  dominions  he 
either  rode  on  horseback  or  was  carried  in  a  palanquin 
along  the  narrow  jungle  trails ;  secondly,  because  he  was 
perfectly  well  aware  that  by  aiding  in  the  construction 
of  roads  he  would  be  undermining  his  own  power,  for 
roads  would  mean  white  men.  To  attempt  to  build  a 
road  across  Goa  in  the  face  of  the  King's  opposition, 
would,  as  the  Dutch  realized,  probably  precipitate  a 
native  uprising,  for,  without  his  cooperation,  it  would 


IN  BUGI  LAND  141 

be  necessary  to  make  use  of  the  corvee  to  obtain 
laborers. 

But  the  Governor  of  the  Celebes  had  been  trained 
in  a  different  school  from  the  Iron  Marshal.  He 
believed  that  with  an  ignorant  and  suspicious  native, 
such  as  the  King  of  Goa,  tact  could  accomplish  more 
than  threats.  So,  instead  of  attempting  to  build  the 
road  by  forced  labor,  he  sent  to  Batavia  for  a  fine 
European  horse  and  a  luxurious  carriage,  gaudily 
painted,  which  he  presented  to  the  King  as  a  token 
of  the  government's  esteem  and  friendship.  Now  the 
King  of  Goa,  as  the  governor  was  perfectly  aware, 
had  about  as  much  use  for  a  wheeled  vehicle  in  his 
roadless  dominions  as  a  Bedouin  of  the  Sahara  has 
for  a  sailboat.  But  the  King  did  precisely  what  the 
governor  anticipated  that  he  would  do:  in  order  that 
he  might  display  his  new  possession  he  promptly 
ordered  his  subjects  to  build  him  a  carriage  road  from 
his  capital  to  Makassar.  Thus  the  government  of  the 
Celebes  obtained  a  perfectly  good  highway  for  the 
price  of  a  horse  and  carriage,  and  won  the  friendship 
of  the  most  powerful  of  the  native  rulers  into  the 
bargain.  After  some  years,  however,  the  road  began 
to  fall  into  disrepair,  but  as  by  this  time  the  novelty 
of  the  horse  and  carriage  had  worn  off,  the  King 
took  little  interest  in  its  improvement.  So  the 
governor  again  had  recourse  to  diplomacy  to  gain 
his  ends,  this  time  presenting  his  Goanese  Majesty  with 
a  motor-car,  gorgeous  with  scarlet  paint  and  polished 
brass.  And,  in  order  that  the  King  might  be  brought 


1 42  STRANGE  TRAILS 

to  realize  that  the  roads  were  not  in  a  condition  con- 
ducive to  comfortable  motoring,  a  young  Dutch  officer 
took  him  for  his  first  motor  ride.  That  ride  evidently 
jolted  the  memory  as  well  as  the  body  of  the  dusky 
monarch,  for  the  next  day  a  royal  edict  was  issued 
summoning  hundreds  of  natives  to  put  the  road  in 
good  repair.  And,  as  the  King  quickly  acquired  a 
taste  for  speeding,  in  good  repair  it  has  remained 
ever  since. 

I  have  related  this  episode  not  because  it  is  in  itself 
of  any  great  importance,  but  because  it  serves  to  illus- 
trate the  methods  used  by  the  Dutch  officials  in  handling 
recalcitrant  or  stubborn  natives.  Though  Holland 
rules  her  fifty  million  brown  subjects  with  an  iron 
hand,  she  has  long  since  learned  the  wisdom  of  wearing 
over  the  iron  a  velvet  glove. 


CHAPTER  VII 

DOWN  TO  AN  ISLAND  EDEN 

I  WENT  to  Bali,  which  is  an  island  two-thirds  the 
size  of  Porto  Rico,  off  the  eastern  extremity  of  Java, 
because  I  wished  to  see  for  myself  if  the  accounts  I 
had  heard  of  the  surpassing  beauty  of  its  women  were 
really  true.  The  Dutch  officials  whom  I  had  met  in 
Samarinda  and  Makassar  had  depicted  the  obscure 
little  isle  as  a  flaming,  fragrant  garden,  overrun  with 
flowers,  a  sort  of  unspoiled  island  Eden,  where  bronze- 
brown  Eves  with  faces  and  figures  of  surpassing  love- 
liness disported  themselves  on  the  long  white  beaches, 
or  loitered  the  lazy  days  away  beneath  the  palms.  But 
I  went  there  skeptical  at  heart,  for,  ever  since  I  jour- 
neyed six  thousand  miles  to  see  the  women  for  whom 
Circassia  has  long  been  undeservedly  famous,  I  have 
listened  with  doubt  and  distrust  to  the  tales  told  by 
returned  travelers  of  the  nymphs  whom  they  had 
found,  leading  an  Arcadian  existence,  on  distant  tropic 
isles. 

Yet  I  must  admit  that,  when  the  anchor  of  the 
Negros  splashed  into  the  blue  waters  off  Boeleleng,  on 
the  northern  coast  of  the  island,  and  a  boat's  crew  of 
white-clad  Filipinos  rowed  me  ashore,  I  half  expected 
to  find  a  Balinese  edition  of  the  Ziegfeld  Follies  chorus 

143 


144  STRANGE  TRAILS 

waiting  to  greet  me  with  demonstrations  of  welcome 
and  garlands  of  flowers.  What  I  did  find  on  the  wharf 
was  a  surly  Dutch  harbor-master,  who,  judging  from 
his  breath  and  disposition,  had  been  on  a  prolonged 
carouse.  Of  the  women  whose  beauty  I  had  heard 
chanted  in  so  many  ports,  or,  indeed,  of  a  native 
Balinese  of  any  kind,  there  was  no  sign.  Barring  the 
harbor-master  and  a  handful  of  Chinese,  Boeleleng, 
which  is  a  place  of  some  size,  appeared  to  be  deserted. 
Yet,  as  I  strolled  along  its  waterfront,  I  had  the  un- 
comfortable feeling  that  I  was  being  watched  by  many 
pairs  of  unseen  eyes. 

"Where  has  everyone  gone?"  I  demanded  of  the 
impassive  Chinese  steward  who  served  me  liquid  re- 
freshment at  the  Concordia  Club.  (Every  town  in  the 
Insulinde  has  its  Concordia  Club,  just  as  every  Swiss 
town  has  its  Grand  Hotel.) 

"Menjepee,"  he  answered  mystically,  shrugging  his 
shoulders.  "Evlyone  stay  in  house." 

"Menjepee,  eh?"  I  repeated.  "Never  heard  of  it. 
Some  sort  of  disease,  I  suppose,  like  cholera  or  plague. 
If  that's  why  everyone  has  run  away  I  think  that  I'd 
better  be  leaving." 

A  ghost  of  a  smile  flitted  across  the  Celestial's 
impassive  countenance. 

"No  clolra.  No  pleg,"  he  assured  me.  "Menjepee 
make  by  pliest." 

Before  I  could  elucidate  this  curious  statement  there 
entered  the  club  a  young  Hollander  immaculate  in 
pipe-clayed  topee  and  freshly  starched  white  linen. 


DOWN  TO  AN  ISLAND  EDEN        145 

"It's  not  a  disease;  it's  a  religious  observance,"  he 
explained  in  perfect  English,  overhearing  my  last 
words.  "They  call  it  Menjepee,  which,  literally  trans- 
lated, means  'silence.'  The  Balinese  are  Hindus,  you 
know — about  the  only  ones  left  in  the  Islands — and 
they  observe  the  Hindu  festivals  very  strictly.  Their 
priests  raise  the  very  devil  with  them  if  they  don't. 
During  Menjepee,  which  lasts  twenty-four  hours,  no 
native  is  permitted  to  set  foot  outside  the  wall  of  his 
kampong  except  for  the  most  urgent  reasons,  and  even 
then  he  has  to  get  permission  from  his  priest.  If  he 
is  caught  outside  his  kampong  without  permission  he 
is  heavily  fined,  to  say  nothing  of  being  given  the 
cold  shoulder  by  his  neighbors." 

"I  was  told  in  Samarinda,"  I  remarked  carelessly, 
by  way  of  introducing  the  topic  in  which  I  was  most 
interested,  "that  some  of  the  native  girls  here  in  Bali 
are  remarkably  good  looking." 

"I  thought  you'd  be  asking  about  them,"  the  Hol- 
lander commented  dryly.  "That's  usually  the  first 
question  asked  by  everyone  who  comes  to  Bali.  But 
you  won't  find  them  on  this  side  of  the  island.  If  you 
want  to  see  them  you'll  have  to  cross  over  to  the  south 
side.  The  prettiest  girls  are  to  be  found  in  the  vicinity 
of  Den  Pasar  and  Kloeng  Kloeng." 

"So  I  had  heard,"  I  told  him.  "I  am  going  to  cross 
the  island  by  motor  and  have  my  boat  pick  me  up  on 
the  other  side.  How  far  is  it  to  Den  Pasar?" 

"Only  about  sixty  miles  and  you'll  have  a  tolerably 


146  STRANGE  TRAILS 

good  mountain  road  all  the  way.  But  you  can't  go 
today." 

"Why  not?" 

"Menjepee,"  was  the  laconic  answer.  "You  won't 
be  able  to  get  anyone  to  take  you.  There  are  only 
four  or  five  motor  cars  in  Boeleleng  and  their  drivers 
are  all  Hindus." 

I  smothered  an  expletive  of  annoyance,  for  my  time 
was  limited  and  the  Negros  had  already  sailed. 

"Surely  you  don't  mean  to  tell  me  that  there  is  no 
way  in  which  I  can  get  across  the  island  today?"  I 
demanded.  "This  Menjepee  business  is  as  infernal  a 
nuisance  as  a  taxicab  strike  in  New  York." 

"Perhaps  the  Resident  might  be  able  to  do  some- 
thing for  you,"  my  acquaintance  suggested  after  a 
moment's  consideration.  "He's  a  good  sort  and  he's 
always  glad  to  meet  visitors.  We  don't  have  many  of 
them  here,  heaven  knows.  Look  here.  I've  a  sado 
outside.  Suppose  you  hop  in  and  I'll  drive  you  up  to 
the  Residency  and  you  can  ask  the  Resident  to  help 
you  out." 

As  we  rattled  in  a  sort  of  governess-cart,  called 
sado,  up  the  broad,  palm-lined  avenue  which  leads 
from  Boeleleng  to  Singaradja,  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment, three  miles  away,  I  caught  fleeting  glimpses  of 
natives  peering  at  me  furtively  over  the  mud  walls 
which  surround  their  kampongs,  but  the  instant  they 
saw  that  they  were  observed  they  disappeared  from 
view.  The  Resident  I  found  to  be  a  man  of  charm  and 
culture  who  had  twice  crossed  the  United  States  on  his 


DOWN  TO  AN  ISLAND  EDEN        147 

way  to  and  from  Holland.  At  first  he  was  dubious 
whether  anything  could  be  done  for  me,  explaining 
that  Menjepee  is  as  devoutly  observed  by  the  Hindus 
of  Bali  as  the  fasting  month  of  Ramadan  is  by  the 
Mohammedans  of  Turkey,  and  that  the  Dutch  officials 
make  it  a  rule  never  to  interfere  with  the  religious 
observances  of  the  natives.  He  finally  consented,  how- 
ever, to  send  for  the  chief  priest  and  see  if  he  could 
persuade  him,  in  view  of  my  limited  time,  to  grant  a 
special  dispensation  to  a  native  who  could  drive  a  car. 
I  don't  know  what  arguments  he  used,  but  they  must 
have  been  effective,  for  within  the  hour  we  heard  the 
honk  of  a  motor-horn  at  the  Residency  gate. 

"We  have  no  hotels  in  Bali,"  the  Resident  remarked 
as  I  was  taking  my  departure,  "but  I'll  telephone  over 
to  the  Assistant  Resident  at  Den  Pasar  to  have  a  room 
ready  for  you  at  the  passangrahan — that's  the  govern- 
ment rest-house,  you  know.  And  I'll  also  send  word  to 
the  Controleur  at  Kloeng  Kloeng  that  you  are  coming 
and  ask  him  to  arrange  some  native  dances  for  you. 
He's  very  keen  about  that  sort  of  thing  and  knows 
where  to  get  the  best  dancers  in  the  island." 

"Tell  me,"  I  queried,  as  I  was  about  to  enter  the 
car,  "are  these  girls  I've  heard  so  much  about  really 
pretty?" 

The  Resident  smiled  cynically. 

"Well,"  he  replied,  and  I  thought  that  I  could  de- 
tect a  note  of  homesickness  in  his  voice,  "it  depends 
upon  the  point  of  view.  When  you  first  arrive  in  Bali 
you  swear  that  they  are  the  prettiest  brown-skinned 


i48  STRANGE  TRAILS 

women  in  the  world.  But  after  you  have  been  here  a 
year  or  so  you  get  so  tired  of  everything  connected 
with  the  tropics  that  you  don't  give  the  best  of  them 
a  second  glance.  For  my  part,  give  me  a  plain,  whole- 
some-looking Dutch  girl  with  a  lusty  figure  and  corn- 
colored  hair  and  cheeks  like  apples  in  preference  to 
all  the  cafe-au-lait  beauties  in  Bali." 

"Au  revoir,"  I  called,  as  I  signaled  to  the  driver 
and  the  car  leaped  forward.  "If  I  listen  to  you  any 
longer  I  shall  have  no  illusions  left." 

Save  only  its  western  end,  which  is  covered  with 
dense  jungle  inhabited  by  tigers  and  boa-constrictors, 
Bali  is  a  vast  garden,  ablaze  with  the  most  gorgeous 
flowers  that  you  can  imagine  and  criss-crossed  by  a 
net-work  of  hard,  white  roads  which  alternately  wind 
through  huge  cocoanut  plantations  or  skirt  intermin- 
able paddy  fields.  From  the  coast  the  ground  rises 
steadily  to  a  ridge  formed  by  a  central  range  of  moun- 
tains, which  culminate  in  the  imposing,  cloud-wreathed 
Peak  of  Bali,  two  miles  high.  Streams  rushing  down 
from  the  mountains  have  cut  the  rich  brown  loam  of 
the  lowlands  into  deep  ravines,  down  which  the  brawl- 
ing torrents  make  their  way  to  the  sea  between  high 
banks  smothered  in  tropical  vegetation.  The  most 
remarkable  feature  of  the  landscape,  however,  are  the 
rice  terraces,  built  by  hand  at  an  incredible  cost  of 
time  and  labor,  which  climb  the  slopes  of  the  moun- 
tains, tier  on  tier,  like  the  seats  in  a  Roman  ampi- 
theatre,  sometimes  to  a  height  of  three  thousand  feet 


DOWN  TO  AN  ISLAND  EDEN        149 

or  more,  constituting  one  of  the  engineering  marvels 
of  the  world. 

The  southern  slope  of  the  divide  appeared  to  be 
much  more  thickly  peopled  than  the  northern,  for,  as 
we  sped  down  the  steep  grades  with  brakes  a-squeal, 
villages  of  mud-walled,  straw-thatched  huts  became  in- 
creasingly frequent,  nor  did  the  natives  appear  to  be 
observing  Menjepee  as  strictly  as  in  the  vicinity  of 
Boeleleng,  for  they  stood  in  the  gateways  of  their 
kampongs  and  waved  at  us  as  we  whirled  past,  and 
more  than  once  we  saw  groups  of  them  squatting  in  a 
circle  beside  the  road,  engaged  in  the  national  pastime 
of  cock-fighting.  Now  we  began  to  encounter  the 
women  whose  beauty  is  famous  throughout  Malaysia : 
glorious,  up-standing  creatures  with  great  masses  of 
blue-black  hair,  a  faint  couleur  de  rose  diffusing  itself 
through  their  skins  of  brown  satin.  They  were  taller 
than  any  other  women  I  saw  in  Malaysia,  lithe  and 
supple  as  Ruth  St.  Denis,  and  bearing  themselves  with 
a  quiet  dignity  and  lissome  grace.  From  waist  to 
ankle  they  were  tightly  wrapped  in  kains  of  brilliant 
batik,  which  defined,  without  revealing,  every  line  and 
contour  of  their  hips  and  lower  limbs,  but  from  the 
waist  up  they  were  entirely  nude,  barring  the  flame- 
colored  flowers  in  their  dusky  hair. 

Unlike  most  Malays,  the  eyes  of  the  Balinese,  in- 
stead of  being  oblique,  are  set  straight  in  the  head. 
The  nose,  which  frequently  mars  what  would  other- 
wise be  well-nigh  perfect  features,  is  generally  small 
and  flat,  with  too-wide  nostrils,  though  I  saw  a  num- 


150  STRANGE  TRAILS 

her  of  Balinese  women  with  noses  which  were  dis- 
tinctly aquiline — the  result  of  a  strain  of  European 
blood,  perhaps.  The  lips  are  thick,  yet  well  formed; 
the  teeth  are  naturally  regular  and  white  but  are  all 
too  often  stained  scarlet  with  betel-nut,  which  is  to  the 
Balinese  girl  what  chewing-gum  is  to  her  sister  of 
Broadway.  The  complexion  ranges  from  a  deep  but 
rosy  brown  to  a  nuance  no  darker  than  that  of  a  Euro- 
pean brunette,  but  in  the  eyes  of  the  Balinese  them- 
selves a  golden-yellow  complexion,  the  color  of  weak 
tea,  is  the  perfection  of  female  beauty.  But  the  chief 
charm  of  these  island  Eves  is  found,  after  all,  not  in 
their  faces  but  in  their  figures — slender,  rounded, 
willowy,  deep-bosomed,  such  as  Botticelli  loved  (to 
paint. 

Despite  the  alluring  tales  brought  back  by  South 
Sea  travelers  of  the  radiant  creatures  who  go  about 
unclad  as  when  they  were  born,  I  have  myself  found 
no  spot,  save  only  Equatorial  Africa,  where  women 
dispense  with  clothing  habitually  and  without  shame. 
Indeed,  I  have  seen  girls  far  more  scantily  clad  on  the 
stage  of  the  Ziegfeld  Roof  or  the  Winter  Garden 
than  I  ever  have  in  those  distant  lands  which  have  not 
yet  received  the  blessings  of  civilization.  In  most  of 
the  Polynesian  islands  the  painter  or  photographer  can 
usually  bribe  a  native  girl  to  disrobe  for  him,  just  as 
in  Paris  or  New  York  he  can  find  models  who  for  a 
consideration  will  pose  in  the  nude,  but  when  the  pic- 
ture is  completed  she  promptly  resumes  the  shapeless 
and  hideous  garments  of  Mother  Hubbard  cut  which 


DOWN  TO  AN  ISLAND  EDEN        151 

the  missionaries  were  guilty  of  introducing  and  whose 
all-enveloping  folds,  they  naively  believe,  form  a 
shield  and  a  buckler  against  temptations  of  the  flesh. 
But  there  are  no  missionaries  in  Bali,  not  one — though 
the  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  may  interest  itself  in 
the  islanders  after  this  book  appears — and  the  women 
continue  to  dress  as  they  should  with  such  figures  and 
in  such  a  climate. 

Because  of  a  flat  tire,  the  driver  stopped  the  car 
beside  a  little  stream  in  which  two  extremely  pretty 
girls  were  bathing.  With  the  evening  sun  glinting  on 
their  brown  bodies  and  their  piquant,  oval  faces 
framed  by  the  dusky  torrents  of  their  loosened  hair, 
they  looked  like  those  bronze  maidens  which  disport 
themselves  in  the  fountain  of  the  Piazza  delle  Terme 
in  Rome,  come  to  life.  I  felt  certain  that  they  would 
take  to  flight  when  Hawkinson  unlimbered  his  motion- 
picture  camera  and  trained  it  upon  them,  but  they 
continued  their  joyous  splashing  without  the  slightest 
trace  of  self-consciousness  or  confusion.  In  fact,  when 
a  Balinese  girl  becomes  embarrassed,  she  does  not  be- 
tray it  by  covering  her  body  but  by  drawing  over  her 
face  a  veil  which  looks  like  a  piece  of  black  fishnet. 
Their  bath  completed,  the  maidens  emerged  from  the 
water  on  to  the  farther  bank,  paused  for  a  moment 
to  arrange  their  hair,  like  wood  nymphs  of  the  Golden 
Age,  then  wound  their  gorgeous  kains  about  them  and 
vanished  amid  the  trees.  From  somewhere  on  the 
distant  hillside  came  the  sweet,  shrill  quaver  of  a  reed 


152  STRANGE  TRAILS 

instrument.    The  driver  said  it  was  a  native  flute,  but 
I  knew  better.    It  was  the  pipes  of  Pan.  .  .  . 

Rather  than  that  you  should  be  scandalized  when 
you  visit  Bali,  let  me  make  it  quite  clear  that  in  mat- 
ters of  morality  the  Balinese  women  are  as  easy  as  an 
old  shoe.  Perhaps  it  would  be  more  accurate  to  say 
that  they  are  unmoral  rather  than  immoral.  This  is 
one  of  the  conditions  of  life  in  the  Insulinde  which 
must  be  accepted  by  the  traveler,  just  as  he  accepts  as 
a  matter  of  course  the  heat  and  the  insects  and  the  dirt. 
Though  polygamy  is  practised,  it  is  confined,  because 
of  the  expense  involved  in  maintaining  a  matrimonial 
stable,  to  the  wealthier  chiefs  and  other  men  of  means. 
A  Turkish  pasha  who  maintained  a  large  harem  once 
told  me  that  polygamy  is  as  trying  to  the  disposition 
as  it  is  to  the  pocketbook,  because  of  the  incessant 
jealousies  and  bickerings  among  the  wives.  And  I 
suppose  the  same  conditions  obtain  in  the  seraglios  of 
Bali.  The  former  rajah  of  Kloeng  Kloeng,  now  known 
as  the  Regent,  a  stout  and  jovial  old  gentleman  ar- 
rayed in  a  cerise  kain,  a  sky-blue  head-cloth,  and  a 
white  jacket  with  American  twenty-dollar  gold  pieces 
for  buttons,  told  me  with  a  touch  of  pride  that  he  had 
twenty-five  wives  in  his  harem.  But  his  pride  subsided 
like  a  pricked  toy  balloon  when  the  Controleur,  who 
had  overheard  the  boast,  mentioned  that  another 
regent,  the  ruler  of  a  district  at  the  western  end  of  the 
island,  possessed  upward  of  three  hundred  wives — of 
the  exact  number  he  was  not  certain  as  it  was  con- 


DOWN  TO  AN  ISLAND  EDEN        153 

stantly  fluctuating.  To  my  great  regret  I  could  not 
spare  the  time  to  pay  a  visit  to  this  Balinese  Brigham 
Young.  There  were  a  number  of  questions  relative 
to  domestic  economy  and  household  administration 
which  I  should  have  liked  to  have  asked  him. 

Until  very  recent  years,  the  young  Balinese  girl  who 
married  an  old  husband  incurred  the  risk  of  meeting 
an  untimely  and  extremely  unpleasant  end,  for  the 
island  was  the  last  stronghold  of  that  strange  and 
dreadful  Hindu  custom,  suttee — the  burning  of 
widows.  The  last  public  suttee  in  Bali  was  held  as 
recently  as  1907,  but,  in  spite  of  the  stern  prohibition 
of  the  practise  by  the  Dutch,  it  is  said  that  some  women 
faithful  to  the  old  customs  and  to  their  dead  husbands 
continue  to  join  the  latter  on  the  funeral  pyre.  In 
fact,  the  Controleur  at  Kloeng  Kloeng  told  me  that, 
only  a  few  weeks  before  my  arrival,  two  women  had 
begged  him  on  their  knees  for  permission  to  be  burned 
with  the  body  of  the  dear  departed,  whom  they  wished 
to  share  in  death  as  in  life. 

The  Balinese,  being  devout  Hindus,  burn  their  dead, 
but  the  cremations  are  held  only  twice  yearly,  being 
observed  as  holidays,  like  Thanksgiving  and  the 
Fourth  of  July.  If  a  man  dies  shortly  before  the  cre- 
mation season  is  due,  his  remains  are  kept  in  the  house 
until  they  can  be  incinerated  with  befitting  ceremony — 
though  I  imagine  that,  in  view  of  the  torrid  climate, 
the  members  of  his  family  perforce  move  elsewhere 
for  the  time  being — but  if  he  is  so  inconsiderate  as  to 
postpone  his  dying  until  after  one  of  these  semi-annual 


154  STRANGE  TRAILS 

burnings,  it  becomes  necessary  to  bury  him.  In  a  land 
where  the  thermometer  frequently  registers  100  and 
above,  you  couldn't  keep  a  corpse  around  the  house  for 
several  months,  could  you?  When  cremation  day 
comes  round  again,  however,  he  is  dug  up,  taken  to  a 
temple  and  burned.  There  is  no  escaping  the  funeral- 
pyre  in  Bali.  As  we  were  leaving  one  of  the  crema- 
tion places  I  overheard  the  Doctor  irreverently  hum- 
ming a  paraphrase  of  a  song  which  was  very  popular 
in  the  army  during  the  war : 

"Ashes  to  ashes  and  dust  to  dust, 
If  the  grave  don't  get  you  the  wood-pile  must." 


Unlike  the  South  Sea  islanders,  who  are  rapidly 
dying  out  as  the  result  of  diseases  introduced  by  Euro- 
peans, the  population  of  Bali — which  is  one  of  the 
most  densely  peopled  regions  in  the  world,  with  325 
inhabitants  to  the  square  mile — is  rapidly  increasing, 
having  more  than  doubled  in  the  last  fifteen  years. 
This  is  due  in  some  measure,  no  doubt,  to  the  climate, 
which,  though  hot,  is  healthy  save  in  certain  low-lying 
coastal  districts,  but  much  more,  I  imagine,  to  the  fact 
that  there  are  scarcely  a  hundred  Europeans  on  the 
island,  and  that,  as  there  are  no  harbors  worthy  the 
name,  European  vessels  rarely  touch  there.  It  is  well 
for  the  Balinese  that  their  enchanted  island  has  no 
harbors,  for  harbors  mean  ships,  and  ships  mean  white 
men,  and  white  men,  particularly  sailors,  all  too  often 


DOWN  TO  AN  ISLAND  EDEN        155 

leave  undesirable   mementoes   of  their   visits  behind 
them. 

The  men  of  Bali  are  a  fine,  strong,  dignified,  rather 
haughty  race,  fit  mates  in  physique  for  their  women. 
They  are  considerably  taller  than  any  other  Malays 
whom  I  saw  and  possess  less  Mongoloid  and  Negroid 
characteristics,  these  being  subdued  by  some  strong 
primeval  alien  strain  which  is  undoubtedly  Caucasian. 
Though  now  peaceable  enough,  every  Balinese  man 
carries  in  his  sash  a  kris — the  long,  curly-bladed  knife 
which  is  the  national  weapon  of  Malaysia.  Most  of 
the  krises  that  I  examined  were  more  ornamental  than 
serviceable,  some  of  them  having  scabbards  of  solid 
gold  and  hilts  set  with  precious  stones.  Moreover, 
they  are  worn  against  the  middle  of  the  back,  where 
they  must  be  difficult  to  reach  in  an  emergency.  I 
imagine  that  the  kris,  universal  though  it  is,  serves  as 
a  symbol  of  former  militancy  rather  than  as  a  fighting 
weapon,  just  as  the  buttons  at  the  back  of  our  tailcoats 
serve  to  remind  us  that  their  original  purpose  was  to 
support  a  sword-belt.  But,  though  the  Balinese  have 
made  no  serious  trouble  for  their  Dutch  rulers  for 
upward  of  a  decade,  they  long  resisted  European 
domination,  as  evidenced  by  the  four  bloody  uprisings 
in  the  last  three-quarters  of  a  century — the  last  was 
in  1908 — which  were  suppressed  only  with  difficulty 
and  considerable  loss  of  life.  When  the  shells  from 
the  gunboats  began  to  burst  over  their  towns,  the 
rajahs,  recognizing  that  their  cause  was  lost,  nerved 
themselves  with  opium  and  committed  the  traditional 


156  STRANGE  TRAILS 

puputan,  or,  with  their  wives,  threw  themselves  on  the 
Dutch  bayonets.  But,  though  the  Balinese  have  bowed 
perforce  to  the  authority  of  the  stout  young  woman 
who  dwells  in  The  Hague,  they  have  none  of  the  cring- 
ing servility,  that  look  of  pathetic  appeal  such  as  you 
see  in  the  eyes  of  dogs  which  have  been  mistreated,  so 
characteristic  of  the  Javanese. 

Though  the  three-quarters  of  a  million  natives  in 
Bali  have  behind  them  the  traditions  of  countless  wars, 
the  Dutch,  who  seem  to  possess  an  extraordinary  tal- 
ent for  governing  brown-skinned  peoples,  maintain 
their  authority  with  a  few  companies  of  native  sol- 
diery officered  by  a  handful  of  Europeans.  The  suc- 
cess of  the  Dutch  in  ruling  Malays,  who  are  notori- 
ously turbulent  and  warlike,  is  largely  due  to  the  fact 
that,  so  long  as  the  customs  of  the  natives  are  not 
inimical  to  good  government  or  to  their  own  well- 
being,  they  studiously  refrain  from  interfering  with 
them.  Nor  is  there  the  same  social  chasm  separating 
Europeans  and  natives  in  the  Insulinde  which  is  found 
in  Britain's  Eastern  possessions.  Were  a  British  of- 
ficial in  India  to  marry  a  native  woman  he  would  be 
promptly  recalled  in  disgrace;  if  a  Dutch  official  mar- 
ries a  native  woman  she  is  accorded  the  same  social 
recognition  as  her  husband.  Though  in  the  old  days 
probably  ninety  per  cent  of  the  Dutch  officials  and 
planters  in  the  Insulinde  lived  with  native  women, 
these  unions  are  constantly  decreasing,  today  probably 
not  more  than  ten  per  cent  of  the  Europeans  thus  solv- 
ing their  domestic  problems.  It  struck  me,  moreover, 


DOWN  TO  AN  ISLAND  EDEN        157 

that  the  Dutch  are  more  in  sympathy  with  their  native 
subjects,  that  they  understand  them  better,  than  the 
British.  It  is  a  remarkable  thing,  when  you  stop  to 
think  of  it,  that  a  little  nation  like  Holland,  with  a 
colonial  army  of  less  than  thirty-five  thousand  men  and 
no  fleet  worthy  of  the  name,  should  be  able  to  main- 
tain its  authority  over  fifty  millions  of  natives,  ten 
thousand  miles  away,  with  so  little  friction. 

We  passed  the  night  in  the  small  rest-house  at  Den 
Pasar  which  the  government  maintains  for  the  use 
of  its  officials.  I  have  said  that  we  passed  the  night, 
mark  you;  I  refuse  to  toy  with  the  truth  to  the  extent 
of  saying  that  we  slept.  Why  they  call  it  a  rest-house 
I  cannot  imagine.  Never  that  I  can  recall,  save  only 
in  a  zoo,  have  I  found  myself  on  such  intimate  terms 
with  so  many  forms  of  animal  life  as  in  that  passan- 
grahan.  Cockroaches  nearly  as  large  as  mice  (before 
you  raise  your  eyebrows  at  this  statement  talk  with 
anyone  who  has  traveled  in  Malaysia),  spiders,  centi- 
pedes, ants  and  beetles  made  my  bedroom  an  entomolo- 
gist's paradise.  Some  large  winged  animal,  presum- 
ably a  fruit-bat  or  a  flying-fox,  entered  by  the  window 
and  circled  the  room  like  an  airplane;  and,  judging 
from  the  sounds  which  proceeded  from  beneath  the 
bed,  I  gathered  that  the  room  also  harbored  a  snake 
or  a  large  rat,  though  which  I  was  not  certain  as  I 
saw  no  reason  for  investigating.  A  family  of  lizards 
disported  themselves  on  the  ceiling  and  when  I  men- 
aced them  with  a  stick  they  departed  so  hastily  that 
one  of  them  abandoned  his  tail,  which  dropped  on  the 


158  STRANGE  TRAILS 

wash-stand.  A  squadron  of  mosquitoes — a  sort  of 
escadrille  de  chasse,  as  it  were — kept  me  awake  until 
daybreak,  when  they  were  relieved  by  a  skirmishing 
party  of  cimex  lectulariae,  which  are  well  known  in 
America  under  a  shorter  and  less  polite  name.  Fishes 
only  were  absent,  but  I  am  convinced  that  their  neglect 
of  me  was  due  to  ignorance  of  my  presence.  Had  they 
known  of  it  I  feel  certain  that  the  climbing  fish,  which 
is  one  of  the  curiosities  of  these  waters,  would  have 
flopped  on  to  my  pillow. 

Upon  our  arrival  at  Kloeng  Kloeng  I  found  the 
Controleur,  who  had  been  notified  by  the  Resident  at 
Singaradja  of  our  coming,  had  made  arrangements  for 
an  elaborate  series  of  native  dances  to  be  given  that 
afternoon  on  the  lawn  of  the  residency.  It  is  a  simple 
matter  to  arrange  a  dance  in  Bali,  for  every  village, 
no  matter  how  small,  supports  a  ballet,  and  usually  a 
troupe  of  actors  as  well,  just  as  an  American  com- 
munity supports  a  baseball  team.  The  money  for  the 
gorgeous  costumes  worn  by  the  dancers  is  raised  by 
local  subscription  and  the  ballet  frequently  visits  the 
neighboring  towns  to  give  exhibitions  or  to  engage  in 
competitions,  contingents  of  the  dancers'  townspeople 
usually  going  along  to  root  for  them. 

The  Balinese  dances  require  many  years  of  arduous 
and  constant  training.  A  girl  is  scarcely  out  of  the 
sling  by  which  Balinese  children  are  carried  on  the 
mother's  back  before,  under  the  tutelage  of  her 
mother,  who  has  herself  perhaps  been  a  dancing-girl 
in  her  time,  she  begins  the  severe  course  of  gymnastics 


DOWN  TO  AN  ISLAND  EDEN        159 

and  muscle  training  which  are  the  foundations  of  all 
Eastern  dances.  From  infancy  until,  not  yet  in  her 
teens,  she  becomes  a  member  of  the  village  ballet  or 
enters  the  harem  of  a  local  rajah,  she  is  as  assiduously 
trained  and  groomed  as  a  race-horse  entered  for  the 
Derby.  From  morning  until  night,  day  after  day, 
year  after  year,  the  muscles  of  her  shoulders,  her  back, 
her  hips,  her  legs,  her  abdomen  are  suppled  and  de- 
veloped until  they  will  respond  to  her  wishes  as  readily 
as  her  slender,  henna-stained  fingers. 

The  lawn  on  which  the  dances  were  held  sloped 
down,  like  a  great  green  rug,  from  the  squat  white 
residency  to  an  ancient  Hindu  temple,  whose  walls,  of 
red-brown  sandstone,  were  transformed  by  the  setting 
sun  into  rosy  coral.  The  Bali  temples  are  but  open 
courtyards  enclosed  within  high  walls,  their  entrances 
flanked  by  towering  gate-posts,  grotesquely  carved. 
Within  the  courtyards,  which  have  arrangements  for 
the  cremation  of  the  dead  as  well  as  for  the  refresh- 
ment of  the  living,  are  numerous  roofed  platforms  and 
small,  elevated  shrines,  reached  by  steep  flights  of  nar- 
row steps,  every  square  inch  being  covered  with  intri- 
cate and  fantastic  carvings.  These  carvings  are  for 
the  most  part  beautifully  colored,  so  that,  when  illumi- 
nated by  the  sun,  they  look  like  those  porcelain  bas- 
reliefs  which  one  buys  in  Florence,  or,  if  the  colors  are 
undimmed  by  age,  like  Persian  enamel.  In  some  of 
the  temples  which  I  visited,  the  colorings  had  been 
ruthlessly  obliterated  by  coats  of  whitewash,  but  in 
those  communities  where  Hinduism  is  still  a  living 


160  STRANGE  TRAILS 

force,  the  inhabitants  frequently  impoverish  them- 
selves in  order  to  provide  the  gold-leaf  with  which 
the  interiors  of  the  shrines  are  covered,  just  as  the 
congregations  of  American  churches  praise  God  with 
carven  pulpits  and  windows  of  stained  glass. 

The  stage  setting  for  the  dances  consisted  of  a 
small,  portable  pagoda,  heavily  gilded  and  set  with 
mirrors — nothing  more,  unless  you  include  the  back- 
drop provided  by  the  Indian  Ocean.  On  either  side  of 
the  pagoda,  which  was  set  in  the  centre  of  the  lawn, 
squatted  a  motionless  native  holding  a  long-handled 
parasol  of  gold,  known  as  a  payong.  So  far  as  I 
could  discover,  the  purpose  of  these  parasol  holders 
was  purely  ornamental,  like  the  palms  that  flank  a 
concert  stage,  for  they  never  stirred  throughout  the 
four  hours  that  the  dancing  lasted.  The  dancers  them- 
selves were  extremely  young — barely  in  their  teens,  I 
should  say — but  I  could  only  guess  their  ages  as  their 
faces  were  so  heavily  enameled  that  they  might  as  well 
have  been  wearing  masks.  Their  costumes,  faithful 
reproductions  of  those  depicted  in  the  carvings  on  the 
walls  of  the  temples,  were  of  a  gorgeousness  which 
made  the  creations  of  Bakst  seem  colorless  and  tame : 
tightly-wound  kains  of  cloth-of-gold  over  which  were 
draped  silks  in  all  the  colors  of  the  chromatic  scale. 
Their  necks  and  arms,  which  were  stained  a  saffron 
yellow,  were  hung  with  jewels  or  near-jewels.  On 
their  heads  were  towering,  indescribable  affairs  of 
feathers,  flowers  and  tinsel,  faintly  reminiscent  of  those 


DOWN  TO  AN  ISLAND  EDEN        161 

fantastic  headdresses  affected  by  the  lamented  Gaby. 
The  music  was  furnished  by  a  gamelan,  or  orchestra, 
of  half-a-hundred  musicians  playing  on  drums,  gongs 
and  reeds,  with  a  few  xylophones  thrown  in  for  good 
measure.  I  am  no  judge  of  music,  but  it  seemed  to  me 
that  when  the  gamelan  was  working  at  full  speed  it 
compared  very  favorably  with  an  American  jazz  or- 
chestra. 

All  the  dances  illustrated  episodes  from  the  Rama- 
yana  or  other  Hindu  mythologies  localized,  the  story 
being  recited  in  a  monotonous,  sing-song  chant,  in  the 
old  Kawi  or  sacred  language,  by  a  professional  ac- 
companist who  sat,  cross-legged,  in  the  orchestra.  As 
a  result  of  constant  drilling  since  babyhood,  the  Balin- 
ese  dancers  attain  a  perfection  of  technique  unknown 
on  the  western  stage,  but  the  visitor  who  expects  to 
see  the  verve  and  abandon  of  the  Indian  dances  as  por- 
trayed by  Ruth  St.  Denis  is  certain  to  be  disappointed. 
To  tell  the  truth,  the  dances  of  Bali,  like  those  I  saw  in 
Java  and  Cambodia,  are  rather  tedious  performances, 
beautiful,  it  is  true,  but  almost  totally  lacking  in  that 
fire  and  spirit  which  we  associate  with  the  East.  It  is 
probable,  however,  that  I  am  not  sufficiently  educated 
in  the  art  of  Terpsichore  to  appreciate  them.  It  was  as 
though  I  had  been  given  a  selection  from  Die  Niebe- 
lungen  Lied  when  I  had  looked  for  rag-time.  But  the 
natives  are  passionately  fond  of  them,  it  being  by  no 
means  uncommon,  I  was  told,  for  a  dance  to  begin  in 
the  late  afternoon  and  continue  without  interruption  un- 
til daybreak.  The  Controleur  told  me  that  he  planned 


1 62  STRANGE  TRAILS 

to  utilize  his  next  long  leave  in  taking  a  native  ballet  to 
Europe,  and,  perhaps,  to  the  United  States.  So, 
should  you  see  the  Bali  dancers  advertised  to  appear  on 
Broadway,  I  strongly  advise  you  not  to  miss  them. 

Instead  of  going  to  Palm  Beach  next  winter,  or  to 
Havana,  or  to  the  Riviera,  why  don't  you  go  out  to 
Bali  and  see  its  lovely  women,  its  curious  customs,  and 
its  superb  scenery  for  yourself?  You  can  get  there  in 
about  eight  weeks,  provided  you  make  good  connec- 
tions at  Singapore  and  Surabaya.  With  no  railways, 
no  street-cars,  no  hotels,  no  newspapers,  no  theatres, 
no  movies,  it  is  a  very  restful  place.  You  can  lounge 
the  lazy  days  away  in  the  cool  depths  of  flower-smoth- 
ered verandahs,  with  a  brown  house-boy  pulling  at  the 
punkah-rope  and  another  bringing  you  cool  drinks  in 
tall,  thin  glasses — for  the  Volstead  Act  does  not  run 
west  of  the  i6oth  meridian — or  you  can  stroll  in  the 
moonlight  on  the  long  white  beaches  with  lithe  brown 
beauties  who  wear  passion-flowers  in  their  raven  hair. 
Or,  should  you  weary  of  so  dolce  far  nlente  an  exist- 
ence, you  can  sail  across  to  Java  with  the  opium- 
runners  in  their  fragile  prahaus,  or  climb  a  two-mile- 
high  volcano,  or  in  the  jungles  at  the  western  extremity 
of  the  island  stalk  the  clouded  tiger.  And  you  can  wear 
pajamas  all  day  long  without  apologizing.  Everything 
considered,  Bali  offers  more  inducements  than  any 
place  I  know  to  the  tired  business  man  or  the  abscond- 
ing bank  cashier. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  GARDEN   THAT  IS  JAVA 

I  ENTERED  Java  through  the  back  door,  as  it  were. 
That  is  to  say,  instead  of  landing  at  Batavia,  which  is 
the  capital  of  Netherlands  India,  and  presenting  my 
letters  of  introduction  to  the  Governor-General,  Count 
van  Limburg  Stirum,  I  landed  at  Pasuruan,  at  the 
eastern  extremity  of  the  six-hundred-mile-long  island. 
It  was  as  though  a  foreigner  visiting  the  United  States 
were  to  land  at  Sag  Harbor,  on  the  far  end  of  Long 
Island,  instead  of  at  New  York.  I  learned  afterward, 
from  the  American  Consul-General  at  Batavia,  that  in 
doing  this  I  committed  a  breach  of  etiquette.  Though 
the  Dutch  make  no  official  objections  to  foreigners 
landing  where  they  please  in  their  Eastern  possessions, 
they  much  prefer  to  have  them  ring  the  front  door- 
bell, hand  in  their  cards,  and  give  the  authorities  an 
opportunity  to  look  them  over.  In  these  days,  with 
Bolshevik  emissaries  stealthily  at  work  throughout  the 
archipelago,  the  Dutch  feel  that  it  behooves  them  to 
inspect  strangers  with  some  care  before  giving  them 
the  run  of  the  islands. 

We  landed  at  Pasuruan  because  iti  is  the  port 
nearest  to  Bromo,  the  most  famous  of  the  great  vol- 
canoes of  Eastern  Java,  but  as  there  is  no  harbor,  only 

163 


1 64  STRANGE  TRAILS 

a  shallow,  unprotected  roadstead,  it  was  necessary  for 
the  Negros  to  anchor  nearly  three  miles  offshore.  So 
shallow  is  the  water,  indeed,  that  it  is  a  common  sight 
at  low  tide  to  see  the  native  fishermen  standing  knee- 
deep  in  the  sea  a  mile  from  land.  Until  quite  recently 
debarkation  at  Pasuruan  was  an  extremely  uncomfort- 
able and  undignified  proceeding,  the  passengers  on  the 
infrequent  vessels  which  touch  there  being  carried 
ashore  astride  of  a  rail  borne  on  the  shoulders  of  two 
natives.  A  coat  of  tar  and  feathers  was  all  that  was 
needed  to  make  the  passenger  feel  that  he  was  a  victim 
of  the  Ku  Klux  Klan.  But  a  narrow  channel  has  now 
been  dredged  through  the  sand-bar  so  that  row-boats 
and  launches  of  shallow  draught  can  make  their  way 
up  the  squdgy  creek  to  the  custom  house  at  high  tide. 

Until  half  a  century  ago  Pasuruan  was  counted 
as  one  of  the  four  great  cities  of  Java,  but  with  the 
extension  of  the  railway  system  throughout  the  island 
and  the  development  of  the  harbor  at  Surabaya,  forty 
miles  away,  its  importance  steadily  diminished,  though 
traces  of  its  one-time  prosperity  are  still  visible  in  its 
fine  streets  and  beautiful  houses,  most  of  which,  how- 
ever, are  now  occupied  by  Chinese.  Perhaps  the  most 
interesting  feature  of  the  place  today  is  found  in  the 
costumes  of  the  native  women,  particularly  the  girls, 
who  wear  a  kind  of  shirt  and  veil  combining  all  the 
colors  of  the  rainbow. 

From  Pasuruan  to  Tosari,  which  is  a  celebrated 
hill-station  and  the  gateway  to  the  volcanoes  of  eastern 
Java,  is  about  twenty-five  miles,  with  an  excellent 


motor  road  all  the  way.  For  the  first  ten  miles  the 
road,  here  a  wide  avenue  shaded  by  tamarinds  and 
djati  trees,  runs  across  a  steaming  plain,  between  fields 
of  rice  and  cane,  but  after  Pasrepan  the  ascent  of  the 
mountains  begins.  The  highway  now  becomes  ex- 
tremely steep  and  narrow,  with  countless  hairpin  turns, 
though  all  danger  of  collision  is  eliminated  by  the  regu- 
lations which  permit  no  down-traffic  in  the  morning 
and  no  up-traffic  in  the  afternoon.  During  the  final 
fifteen  miles,  in  which  is  made  an  ascent  of  more  than 
six  thousand  feet,  one  has  the  curious  experience  of 
passing,  in  a  single  hour,  from  the  torrid  to  the  tem- 
perate zone.  In  the  earlier  stages  of  the  ascent  the 
road  zigzags  upward  through  magnificent  tropical 
forests,  where  troops  of  huge  gray  apes  chatter  in  the 
upper  branches  and  grass-green  parrots  flash  from  tree 
to  tree.  Palms  of  all  varieties,  orchids,  tree-ferns, 
bamboos,  bananas,  mangoes,  gradually  give  way  to 
slender  pines;  the  heavy  odors  of  the  tropics  are  re- 
placed by  a  pleasant  balsamic  fragrance;  the  hill- 
sides become  clothed  with  familiar  flowers — daisies, 
buttercups,  heliotrope,  roses,  fuchsias,  geraniums,  can- 
nas,  camelias,  Easter  lilies,  azaleas,  morning  glories, 
until  the  mountain-slopes  look  like  a  vast  old-fashioned 
garden.  In  the  fields,  instead  of  rice  and  cane,  straw- 
berries, potatoes,  cabbages,  onions,  and  corn,  are  seen. 
As  the  road  ascends  the  air  becomes  cold  and 
very  damp;  rain-clouds  gather  on  the  mountains  and 
there  are  frequent  showers.  At  one  point  the  mist  be- 
came so  thick  that  I  could  scarcely  discern  the  figure 


i66  STRANGE  TRAILS 

of  my  chauffeur  and  we  were  compelled  to  advance 
with  the  utmost  caution,  for  at  many  points  the  road, 
none  too  wide  at  best,  falls  sheer  away  in  dizzy  preci- 
pices. But  as  suddenly  as  it  came,  just  as  suddenly  did 
the  mist  lift,  revealing  the  great  plain  of  Pasuruan, 
a  mile  below,  stretching  away,  away,  until  its  green 
was  blended  with  the  turquoise  of  the  Java  Sea.  It 
is  a  veritable  Road  of  a  Thousand  Wonders,  but  there 
are  spots  where  those  who  do  not  relish  great  heights 
and  narrow  spaces  will  explain  that  they  prefer  to  walk 
so  that  they  may  gather  wild-flowers. 

Were  it  not  for  the  wild  appearance  of  its  Tenn- 
gri  mountaineers,  Tosari,  which  is  the  best  health 
resort  in  Java,  might  be  readily  mistaken  for  an  Alpine 
village,  for  it  has  the  same  steep  and  straggling 
streets,  the  same  weather-beaten  chalets  clinging  pre- 
cariously to  the  rocky  hillsides,  the  same  quaint  shops, 
their  windows  filled  with  souvenirs  and  postcards,  the 
same  glorious  view  of  green  valleys  and  majestic  peaks, 
the  same  crisp,  cool  air,  as  exhilarating  as  champagne. 
The  Sanatarium  Hotel,  which  is  always  filled  with 
sallow-faced  officials  and  planters  from  the  plains,  con- 
sists of  a  large  main  building  built  in  the  Swiss  chalet 
style  and  numerous  bungalows  set  amid  a  gorgeous 
garden  of  old-fashioned  flowers.  Every  bedroom  has 
a  bath — but  such  a  bath! — a  damp,  gloomy,  cement- 
lined  cell  having  in  one  corner  a  concrete  cistern,  filled 
with  ice-cold  mountain  water.  The  only  furniture  is  a 
tin  dipper.  And  it  takes  real  courage,  let  me  tell  you, 


THE  GARDEN  THAT  IS  JAVA        167 

to  ladle  that  icy  water  over  your  shivering  person  in 
the  chill  of  a  mountain  morning. 

The  mountain  slopes  in  the  vicinity  of  Tosari  are 
dotted  with  the  wretched  wooden  huts  of  the  native 
tribe  called  Tenggerese,  the  only  race  in  Java  which 
has  remained  faithful  to  Buddhism.  There  are  only 
about  five  thousand  of  them  and  they  keep  to  them- 
selves in  their  own  community,  shut  out  from  the  rest 
of  the  world.  They  are  shorter  and  darker  than  the 
natives  of  the  plains  and,  like  most  savages,  are  lazy, 
ignorant  and  incredibly  filthy.  Because  the  air  is  cool 
and  dry,  and  water  rather  scarce,  they  never  bathe,  pre- 
ferring to  remain  dirty.  As  a  result  the  aroma  of  their 
villages  is  a  thing  not  soon  forgotten.  The  doors  of 
their  huts,  which  have  no  windows,  all  face  Mount 
Bromo,  where  their  guardian  deity,  Dewa  Soelan  Iloe, 
is  supposed  to  dwell.  Once  each  year  the  Tenggerese 
hold  a  great  feast  at  the  foot  of  the  volcano,  and,  until 
the  Dutch  authorities  suppressed  the  custom,  were  ac- 
customed to  conclude  these  ceremonies  by  tossing  a  liv- 
ing child  into  the  crater  as  a  sacrifice  to  their  god. 
Though  an  ancient  tradition  forbids  the  cultivation  of 
rice  by  the  Tenggerese,  they  earn  a  meager  living  by 
raising  vegetables,  which  they  carry  on  horseback  to  the 
markets  on  the  plain,  and  by  acting  as  guides  and 
coolies.  They  are  incredibly  strong  and  tireless,  the 
two  men  who  carried  Hawkinson's  heavy  motion- 
picture  outfit  to  the  summit  of  Bromo  making  the 
round  trip  of  forty  miles  in  a  single  day  over  some  of 
the  steepest  trails  I  have  ever  seen. 


i68  STRANGE  TRAILS 

Growing  on  the  mountainsides  about  Tosari  are 
many  bushes  of  thorn  apple,  called  Datara  alba,  their 
white,  funnel-shaped  flowers  being  sometimes  twelve 
inches  long.  From  the  seeds  of  the  thorn  apple 
the  Tenggerese  make  a  sort  of  flour  which  is  strongly 
narcotic  in  its  effect.  Because  of  this  quality,  it  is  occa- 
sionally utilized  by  burglars,  who  blow  it  into  a  room 
which  they  propose  to  rob,  through  the  key-hole,  there- 
by drugging  the  occupants  into  insensibility  and  mak- 
ing it  easy  for  the  burglars  to  gain  access  to  the  room 
and  help  themselves  to  its  contents.  Which  reminds  me 
that  in  some  parts  of  Malaysia  native  desperadoes 
are  accustomed  to  pound  the  fronds  of  certain  varie- 
ties of  palm  to  the  consistency  of  powdered  glass. 
They  carry  a  small  quantity  of  this  powder  with  them 
and  when  they  meet  anyone  against  whom  they  have  a 
grudge  they  blow  it  into  his  face.  The  sharp  particles, 
being  inhaled,  quickly  affect  the  lungs  and  death  usually 
results.  A  friend  of  mine,  for  many  years  an  Amer- 
ican consul  in  the  East,  once  had  the  misfortune  to  be 
next  to  the  victim  of  such  an  attack,  and  himself  in- 
haled a  small  quantity  of  the  deadly  powder.  The 
lung  trouble  which  shortly  developed  hastened,  if  it 
did  not  actually  cause,  his  death. 

That  we  might  reach  the  Moengal  Pass  at  daybreak 
in  order  to  see  the  superb  panorama  of  Bromo  and 
the  adjacent  volcanoes  as  revealed  by  the  rising  sun,  we 
started  from  Tosari  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
Our  mounts  were  wiry  mountain  ponies,  hardy  as 
mustangs  and  sure-footed  as  goats.  And  it  was 


THE  GARDEN  THAT  IS  JAVA        169 

well  that  they  were,  for  the  trail  was  the  steepest  and 
narrowest  that  I  have  ever  seen  negotiated  by  horses. 
The  Bright  Angel  Trail,  which  leads  from  the  rim  of 
the  Grand  Canon  down  to  the  Colorado,  is  a  Central 
Park  bridle-path  in  comparison.  In  places  the  grade 
rose  to  fifty  per  cent  and  in  many  of  the  descents  I  had 
to  lean  back  until  my  head  literally  touched  the  pony's 
tail.  It  recalled  the  days,  long  past,  when,  as  a  student 
at  the  Italian  Cavalry  School,  I  was  called  upon  to  ride 
down  the  celebrated  precipice  at  Tor  di  Quinto.  But 
there,  if  your  mount  slipped,  a  thick  bed  of  sawdust 
was  awaiting  you  to  break  the  fall.  Here  there  was 
nothing  save  jagged  rocks.  We  started  in  pitch  dark- 
ness and  for  three  hours  rode  through  a  night  so  black 
that  I  could  not  see  my  pony's  ears.  The  trail, 
which  in  places  was  barely  a  foot  wide,  ran  for  miles 
along  a  sort  of  hogback,  the  ground  falling  sheer  away 
on  either  side.  It  was  like  riding  blindfolded  along 
the  ridgepole  of  a  church,  and,  had  my  pony  slipped, 
the  results  would  have  been  the  same. 

But  the  trials  of  the  ascent  were  forgotten  in  the 
overwhelming  grandeur  of  the  scene  which  burst  upon 
us  as,  just  at  sunrise,  we  drew  rein  at  the  summit  of  the 
Moengal  Pass.  Never,  not  in  the  Rockies,  nor  the 
Himalayas,  nor  the  Alps,  have  I  seen  anything  more 
sublime.  At  our  feet  yawned  a  vast  valley,  or  rather 
a  depression,  like  an  excavation  for  some  titanic  build- 
ing, hemmed  in  by  perpendicular  cliffs  a  thousand  feet 
in  height.  Wafted  by  the  morning  breeze  a  mighty 
river  of  clouds  poured  slowly  down  the  valley,  filling 


i  yo  STRANGE  TRAILS 

it  with  gray-white  fleece  from  brim  to  brim.  Slowly 
the  clouds  dissolved  before  the  mounting  sun  until  there 
lay  revealed  below  us  the  floor  of  the  depression, 
known  as  the  Sand  Sea,  its  yellow  surface,  smooth  as 
the  beach  at  Ormond,  slashed  across  by  the  beds  of 
dried-up  streams  and  dotted  with  clumps  of  stunted 
vegetation.  Like  the  Sahara  it  is  boundless — a  sym- 
bol of  solitude  and  desolation.  When,  in  the  early 
morning  or  toward  nightfall,  the  conical  volcanoes 
cast  their  lengthening  shadows  upon  this  expanse  of 
sand,  it  reminds  one  of  the  surface  of  the  moon  as 
seen  through  a  telescope.  But  at  midday,  beneath  the 
pitiless  rays  of  the  equatorial  sun,  it  resembles  an  enor- 
mous pool  of  molten  brass,  the  illusion  being  height- 
ened by  the  heat-waves  which  flicker  and  dance  above  it. 
From  the  center  of  the  Sand  Sea  rises  the  extinct  crater 
of  Batok,  a  sugar-loaf  cone  whose  symmetrical  slopes 
are  so  corrugated  by  hardened  rivulets  of  lava  that 
they  look  for  all  the  world  like  folds  of  gray-brown 
cloth.  Beyond  Batok  we  could  catch  a  glimpse  of 
Bromo  itself,  belching  skyward  great  clouds  of  bil- 
lowing smoke  and  steam,  while  from  its  crater  came 
a  rumble  as  of  distant  thunder.  And  far  in  the  dis- 
tance, its  purple  bulk  faintly  discernible  against  the 
turquoise  sky,  rose  Smeroe,  the  greatest  volcano  of 
them  all. 

The  descent  from  the  Moengal  Pass  to  the  Sand  Sea 
is  so  steep  that  it  is  necessary  to  make  it  on  foot,  even 
the  nimble-footed  ponies  having  all  they  can  do  to 
scramble  down  the  precipitous  and  slippery  trail.  It  is 


The  volcano  of  Bromo,  Eastern  Java,  in  eruption 


THE  GARDEN  THAT  IS  JAVA        171 

well  to  cross  the  Sand  Sea  as  soon  after  daybreak  as 
possible,  for  by  mid-morning  the  heat  is  like  a  blast 
from  an  open  furnace-door.  It  is  a  four  mile  ride 
across  the  Sand  Sea  to  the  lower  slopes  of  Bromo,  but 
the  sand  is  firm  and  hard  and  we  let  the  ponies  break 
into  a  gallop — an  exhilarating  change  from  the  tedious 
crawl  necessary  in  the  mountains.  Then  came  a  stiff 
climb  of  a  mile  or  more  over  fantastically  shaped  hills 
of  lava,  the  final  ascent  to  the  brink  of  the  crater  being 
accomplished  by  a  flight  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  stone 
steps.  The  crater  of  Bromo  is  shaped  like  a  huge  fun- 
nel, seven  hundred  feet  deep  and  nearly  half  a  mile 
across.  From  it  belch  unceasingly  dark  gray  clouds  jof 
smoke  and  sulphurous  fumes,  while  now  and  then 
large  rocks  are  spewed  high  in  the  air  only  to  fall  back 
again,  rolling  down  the  inside  slope  of  the  crater  with 
a  thunderous  rumble,  as  though  the  god  whom  the 
Tenggerese  believe  dwells  on  the  mountain  was  playing 
at  ten-pins.  Deep  down  at  the  bottom  of  the  crater 
jets  of  greenish-yellow  sulphur  flicker  in  a  cauldron 
of  molten  lava,  from  which  a  red  flame  now  and  then 
leaps  upward,  like  an  out-thrust  serpent's  tongue.  No 
wonder  that  the  ignorant  mountaineers  look  on  Bromo 
with  fear  and  veneration,  for  it  huddles  there,  in  the 
midst  of  that  awful  solitude,  like  some  monster  in 
its  death  agony,  gasping  and  groaning. 

The  transition  from  the  lofty  solitudes  of  the  Teng- 
ger  Mountains  to  the  steaming,  teeming  thoroughfares 
of  Surabaya,  the  metropolis  of  eastern  Java,  is  not  a 
pleasant  one.  For  Surabaya — there  are  no  less  than 


172  STRANGE  TRAILS 

half-a-dozen  ways  of  spelling  its  name — though  the 
greatest  trading  port  in  Java,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  visitor  is  not  an  attractive  city.  Neither  is  it  a 
healthy  place,  for  it  has  a  hot,  humid,  sticky  climate,  it 
lacks  good  drinking  water  and  enjoys  no  refreshing 
breeze;  mosquitoes  feed  on  one's  body  and  red  ants  on 
one's  belongings;  malaria  and  typhoid  are  prevalent 
and  even  bubonic  plague  is  not  unknown,  the  combined 
effect  of  all  these  showing  in  the  sallow  and  enervated 
faces  of  its  inhabitants.  Yet  it  is  a  bustling,  up-and- 
doing  city,  as  different  from  phlegmatic,  conservative 
old  Batavia  as  Los  Angeles  is  from  Boston. 

Unlike  the  houses  of  Batavia,  which  stand  far  back 
from  the  street  in  lovely  gardens,  the  houses  of  Sura- 
baya are  built  directly  on  the  street,  with  their  gardens 
at  the  back.  Most  of  the  houses  of  the  better  class 
are  in  the  Dutch  colonial  style — low  and  white  with 
green  blinds  and  across  the  front  a  stately  row  of 
columns.  Every  house  is  marked  with  a  huge  sign- 
board bearing  the  number  and  the  owner's  name,  thus 
making  it  easy  for  the  stranger  to  find  the  one  for 
which  he  is  looking.  There  are  no  sidewalks  and,  as  a 
consequence,  walking  is  anything  but  pleasant,  the 
streets  being  deep  in  dust  during  the  dry  season  and 
equally  deep  in  mud  during  the  rains.  I  do  not  recall 
ever  having  seen  a  city  of  its  size  with  so  much  wheeled 
traffic.  Indeed,  the  scene  on  the  Simpang  Road  about 
three  in  the  afternoon,  when  the  merchants  are  re- 
turning to  their  offices  after  the  midday  siesta,  re- 
sembles that  on  Fifth  Avenue  at  the  rush  hour,  the 


THE  GARDEN  THAT  IS  JAVA        173 

broad  thoroughfare  being  literally  packed  from  curb 
to  curb  with  vehicles  of  every  description:  the  ram- 
shackle little  victorias  known  as  mylords,  the  high, 
two-wheeled  dog-carts,  with  their  seats  back  to  back, 
called  sados,  the  two-pony  cabs  termed  kosongs,  creak- 
ing bullock  carts  with  wheels  higher  than  a  man, 
hand-cars  and  rickshaws  hauled  by  dripping  coolies, 
and  other  coolies  staggering  along  beneath  the  weight 
of  burdens  swinging  from  the  carrying-poles  called 
pikolans,  and  every  make  and  model  of  motor-cars 
from  ostentatious,  self-important  Rolls-Royces  to 
busybody  Fords.  Standing  in  the  middle  of  the  road- 
way, controlling  and  directing  this  roaring  river  of 
traffic  with  surprising  efficiency  are  diminutive  Javan- 
ese policemen  wearing  blue  helmets  many  sizes  too 
large  for  them  and  armed  with  revolvers,  swords  and 
clubs. 

The  port  of  Surabaya,  which  is  the  busiest  in  the 
entire  Insulinde,  is  four  miles  from  the  business  section 
of  the  city,  with  which  it  is  connected  by  a  splendid  as- 
phalt highway  lined  by  huge  warehouses,  factories,  go- 
downs  and  oil-tanks,  many  of  them  bearing  familiar 
American  names.  In  fact,  one  of  the  first  things  to  at- 
tract my  attention  in  Java  was  the  great  variety  of 
American  articles  on  sale  and  in  use — motor  cars,  tires, 
typewriters,  office  supplies,  cameras,  phonographs, 
agricultural  machinery  of  all  descriptions. 

More  than  a  tenth  of  Surabaya's  population  is  Chi- 
nese and  their  commercial  influence  dominates  the 
whole  city.  They  have  the  finest  residences,  the  most 


174  STRANGE  TRAILS 

luxurious  clubs,  the  largest  shops,  the  handsomest  mo- 
tor cars.  I  was  shown  a  row  of  warehouses  extending 
along  the  canal  for  one  long  block  which  are  the  prop- 
erty of  a  single  Chinese.  Wherever  I  traveled  in  the 
Indies  I  was  impressed  by  the  business  acumen  and 
success  of  these  impassive,  industrious  sons  of  the 
Flowery  Kingdom.  They  are  the  Greeks  of  the  Far 
East  but  without  the  Greek's  unscrupulousness  and 
lack  of  dependability.  A  Chinese  will  not  hesitate  to 
take  advantage  of  you  in  a  business  deal,  but  if  he  once 
gives  you  his  word  he  will  always  keep  it,  no  matter  at 
what  cost  to  himself,  and  if  you  should  leave  your 
pocketbook  in  his  shop  he  will  come  hurrying  after 
you  to  restore  it.  The  Chinese  living  in  the  Indies 
are  uniformly  prosperous — many  of  them  are  mil- 
lionaires— they  have  their  own  clubs  and  chambers 
of  commerce  and  charitable  organizations;  they  not 
infrequently  control  the  finances  of  the  districts  in 
which  they  live  and,  generally  speaking,  they  make  ex- 
cellent citizens. 

Java  has  almost  exactly  the  same  area — 50,000 
square  miles — and  the  same  population — 34,000,000 
— as  England.  Agriculturally,  it  is  the  richest  country 
of  its  size  in  the  world.  Because  I  wished  to  visit 
the  great  tea  and  coffee  and  indigo  plantations  of 
its  interior  and  to  see  its  palaces  and  temples  and 
monuments,  I  decided  to  traverse  the  island  from  end 
to  end  by  train  and  motor  car.  Accordingly  we  left 
the  Negros  at  Surabaya,  directing  Captain  Galvez  to 


THE  GARDEN  THAT  IS  JAVA        175 

pick  us  up  a  fortnight  later  at  Batavia,  at  the  other  end 
of  the  island. 

There  are  at  present  more  than  three  thousand  miles 
of  railways  in  operation  in  Java,  about  two-thirds  of 
which  are  the  property  of  the  government.    With  a  few 
exceptions,  the  lines  are  narrow  gauge.     The  railway 
carriages  are  a  curious  combination  of  English,  Swiss 
and  American  construction,  being  divided  into  compart- 
ments, which  are  separated  by  swinging  half-doors,  like 
those  which  used  to  be  associated  with  saloons.    The 
seats  in  the  second-class  compartments,  which  are  cov- 
ered with  cane,  are  decidedly  more  comfortable  than 
those  of  the  first  class,  which  are  upholstered  in  leather. 
Owing  to  the  excessive  heat  and  humidity,  the  leather 
has  the  annoying  habit  of  adhering  to  one's  clothing, 
so  that  you  frequently  leave  the  train  after  a  long  jour- 
ney with  a  section  of  the  seat-covering  sticking  to  your 
trousers  or  with  a  section  of  your  trousers  sticking  to 
the  seat.    To  avoid  the  discomfort  of  the  midday  heat, 
the  long-distance  express  trains  usually  start  at  day- 
break  and  reach   their  destinations   at  noon,  which, 
though  doubtless  a  sensible  custom,  necessitates  the 
traveler  arising  when  it  is  still  dark.     The  express 
trains  have  dining  cars,  in  which  a  meal  of  sorts  can  be 
had  for  two  guilders  (about  eighty  cents)  and  the  first 
and  second-class  carriages  are  equipped  with  electric 
fans  and  screens.    In  spite  of  these  conveniences,  how- 
ever, travel  in  Java  is  hot  and  dusty  and  generally  dis- 
agreeable.   After  a  railway  journey  one  needs  a  bath,  a 
shave,  a  haircut,  a  shampoo,  a  massage,  and  a  complete 


176  STRANGE  TRAILS 

outfit  of  fresh  clothes  before  feeling  respectable  again. 

In  many  respects,  motoring  is  more  comfortable 
than  railway  travel.  The  roads  throughout  the  island 
are  excellent  and  have  been  carefully  marked  by  the 
Java  Motor  Club,  though  fast  driving  is  made  danger- 
ous by  the  bullock  carts,  pack  trains  and  carabaos, 
which  pay  no  attention  to  the  rules  of  the  road.  Nor 
is  motoring  particularly  expensive,  for  an  excellent 
seven-passenger  car  of  a  well-known  American  make 
can  be  hired  for  forty  dollars  a  day.  Visitors  to  Java 
should  bear  in  mind,  however,  that  all  their  motoring 
and  sight-seeing  must  be  done  in  the  morning,  as,  during 
the  wet  season,  it  invariably  rains  in  torrents  during  the 
greater  part  of  every  afternoon. 

The  hotels  of  Java,  taking  them  by  and  large,  are 
moderately  good,  while  certain  of  them,  such  as  the 
Oranje  at  Surabaya,  the  Grand  at  Djokjakarta,  and 
the  Indies  at  Batavia,  are  quite  excellent  in  spots,  with 
orchestras,  iced  drinks,  electric  fans,  and  well-cooked 
food.  Though  every  room  has  a  bath — a  necessity  in 
such  a  climate — tubs  are  quite  unknown,  their  place 
being  taken  by  showers,  or,  in  the  simpler  hostleries, 
by  barrels  of  water  and  dippers.  The  mattresses  and 
pillows  appeared  to  be  filled  with  asphalt,  though  it 
should  be  remembered  that  a  soft  bed  is  unendurable 
in  the  tropics.  Every  bed  is  provided  with  a  cylin- 
drical bolster,  six  feet  long  and  about  fifteen  inches  in 
diameter,  which  serves  to  keep  the  sheet  from  touching 
the  body.  They  are  known  as  "Dutch  widows." 
If  you  are  fond  of  good  coffee,  I  should  strongly 


THE  GARDEN  THAT  IS  JAVA        177 

advise  you  to  take  your  own  with  you  when  you  go  to 
Java.  From  my  boyhood  "Old  Government  Java" 
had  been  a  synonym  in  our  household  for  the  finest 
coffee  grown,  so  my  astonishment  and  disappointment 
can  be  imagined  when,  at  my  first  breakfast  in  Java, 
there  was  set  before  me  a  cup  containing  a  dubious  look- 
ing syrup,  like  those  used  at  American  soda-water  foun- 
tains, the  cup  then  being  filled  up  with  hot  milk.  The 
Germans  never  would  have  complained  about  their 
war-time  coffee,  made  from  chicory  and  acorns,  had 
they  once  tasted  the  Java  product.  Yet  I  was  assured 
that  this  was  the  choicest  coffee  grown  in  Java. 
I  might  add  that,  as  a  result  of  a  blight  which  all  but 
ruined  the  industry  in  the  '705,  fifty-two  per  cent  of  the 
total  acreage  of  coffee  plantations  in  the  island  is  now 
planted  with  the  African  species,  called  Coffea  robusta, 
and  thirteen  per  cent  with  another  African  species, 
Coffea  liberia,  and  the  rest  with  Japanese  and  other 
varieties.  Though  the  term  "Mocha  and  Java"  is 
still  used  by  the  trade  in  the  United  States,  few  Amer- 
icans of  the  present  generation  have  ever  tasted  either, 
for  virtually  no  Mocha  coffee  and  very  little  Java  have 
been  imported  into  this  country  for  many  years. 

The  lazy,  leisurely,  luxurious  existence  led  by  the 
great  Dutch  planters  in  Java  is  in  many  respects  a 
counterpart  of  that  led  by  the  wealthy  planters  of  our 
own  South  before  the  Civil  War.  Dwelling  in  stately 
mansions  set  in  the  midst  of  vast  estates,  waited  upon 
by  retinues  of  native  servants,  they  exercise  much  the 
same  arbitrary  authority  over  the  thousands  of  brown 


178  STRANGE  TRAILS 

men  who  work  their  coffee,  sugar  and  indigo  planta- 
tions that  the  cotton-growers  of  the  old  South  exer- 
cised over  their  slaves.  Indeed,  it  was  not  until  1914 
that  a  form  of  peonage  which  had  long  been  author- 
ized in  Java  was  abolished  by  law,  for  up  to  that  year 
private  landowners  had  the  right  to  enforce  from  all 
the  laborers  on  their  estates  one  day's  gratuitous  work 
out  of  seven. 

There  are  no  shrewder  or  more  capable  business 
men  to  be  found  anywhere  than  the  Dutch  traders  and 
merchants  in  Java.  Many  of  the  great  trading  houses 
of  the  Dutch  Indies  have  remained  the  property  of  the 
same  family  for  generations,  their  staffs  being  as  care- 
fully trained  for  the  business  as  the  Dutch  officials  are 
trained  for  the  colonial  service.  The  young  men  come 
out  from  Holland  as  cadets  with  the  intention  of  spend- 
ing the  remainder  of  their  lives  in  the  Insulinde,  study- 
ing the  native  languages  and  acquainting  themselves 
with  native  prejudices,  predilections  and  customs.  They 
are  usually  blessed  with  a  phlegmatic  temperament, 
well  suited  to  life  in  the  tropics,  take  life  easily,  live  in 
considerable  luxury,  play  a  little  tennis,  grow  fat,  spend 
their  afternoons  in  pajamas  and  slippers,  stroll  down 
to  the  local  Concordia  Club  in  the  evenings  to  sit  at 
small  tables  on  the  terrace  and  drink  enormous  quanti- 
ties of  beer  and  listen  to  the  band,  not  infrequently 
marry  native  women,  and  often  amass  great  fortunes. 

Though  the  Javanese  peasant  is,  from  necessity,  in- 
dustrious, the  upper  classes,  particularly  the  nobles, 
are  effeminate,  indolent,  decadent,  and  servile.  Their 


THE  GARDEN  THAT  IS  JAVA        179 

amusements  are  cock-fighting,  dancing,  shadow  plays, 
and  gambling,  and  they  lead  an  utterly  worthless  exist- 
ence which  the  Dutch  do  nothing  to  discourage.  Their 
Mohammedanism  is  decadent  and  has  none  of  the 
virility  which  distinguishes  those  followers  of  Islam 
who  dwell  in  western  lands.  Though  there  is  no  deny- 
ing that  the  natives  are  immeasurably  more  prosper- 
ous, on  the  whole,  than  before  the  white  man  came,  the 
Dutch  have  done  little  if  anything  to  improve  their  liv- 
ing conditions.  True,  their  rule  is  a  just  and  a  not  un- 
kind one;  they  have  built  roads  and  railways,  but 
this  was  done  in  order  to  open  up  the  island;  and  they 
have  established  a  number  of  industrial  and  technical 
schools,  but  there  is  no  system  of  compulsory  education, 
and  no  systematic  attempt  has  been  made  to  ameliorate 
the  condition  of  the  great  brown  mass  of  the  people. 
I  do  not  think  that  I  am  doing  them  an  injustice  when 
I  assert  that  the  Dutch  are  administrators  rather  than 
altruists,  that  they  are  more  concerned  in  maintaining  a 
just  and  stable  government  in  their  insular  possessions, 
and  in  increasing  their  productivity,  than  they  are  in 
improving  the  moral,  mental,  and  material  condition 
of  the  natives. 

Lying  squarely  in  the  middle  of  Java  are  the  Vor- 
stenlanden,  "the  Lands  of  the  Princes" — Soerakarta 
and  Djokjakarta — the  most  curious,  as  they  are  the 
most  picturesque,  states  in  the  entire  Insulinde.  But, 
because  in  their  form  of  government  and  the  lives  and 
customs  of  their  inhabitants  they  are  so  vastly  different 


i8o  STRANGE  TRAILS 

from  the  other  portions  of  the  island,  I  feel  that  they 
are  deserving  of  a  chapter  to  themselves  and  hence 
shall  omit  any  account  of  them  here. 

Bandoeng,  the  prosperous  and  extremely  up-to-date 
capital  of  the  Preanger  Regencies,  is  the  fifth  largest 
city  in  Java,  being  exceeded  in  population  only  by  Ba- 
tavia,  Surabaya,  Surakarta  and  Samarang.  The  city, 
which  is  the  healthiest  and  most  modern  in  Java,  stands 
in  the  middle  of  a  great  plain,  2300  feet  above  the  sea, 
having,  therefore,  a  delightful  all-the-year-round  cli- 
mate. It  has  excellent  electric  lighting,  water  and  sani- 
tary systems,  miles  of  well-paved  and  shaded  streets, 
and  many  beautiful  residences — the  finest  I  saw  in 
Malaysia — set  in  the  midst  of  charming  gardens.  It  is 
planned  to  remove  the  seat  of  government  from  Ba- 
tavia  to  Bandoeng  in  the  not  far  distant  future  and 
the  handsome  buildings  which  will  eventually  house 
the  various  departments  are  rapidly  nearing  comple- 
tion. When  they  are  completed  Bandoeng  will  be  one 
of  the  finest,  if  not  the  finest  colonial  capital  in  the 
world.  But,  attractive  though  the  city  is,  it  holds  noth- 
ing of  particular  interest  to  the  casual  visitor  unless  it 
be  the  quinine  factory.  This  company  seems  likely  to 
succeed  in  cornering  the  supply  of  Javanese  cinchona 
bark  and  is  fast  building  up  a  world  market  for  its 
product.  The  cinchona  tree,  from  which  the  bark  is  ob- 
tained, was  first  introduced  from  South  America  in 
the  middle  of  the  last  century  and  is  now  widely  grown 
throughout  the  Preanger  Regencies,  both  by  the  gov- 


THE  GARDEN  THAT  IS  JAVA        181 

ernment  and  by  private  planters.  After  six  or  seven 
years  the  tree  is  sufficiently  matured  for  the  removal 
of  its  bark,  which,  after  being  carefully  dried,  sorted, 
and  baled,  is  shipped  to  the  factory  in  Bandoeng, 
where  it  is  manufactured  into  the  quinine  of  commerce. 
The  process  of  manufacture  is  a  secret  one,  which  ex- 
plains, though  it  does  not  excuse,  the  extreme  discour- 
tesy shown  by  the  management  toward  foreigners  de- 
siring to  visit  the  plant. 

It  takes  three  and  a  half  hours  by  express  train  from 
Bandoeng  to  Buitenzorg,  the  summer  capital  of  the 
Indies,  and  the  journey  is  one  of  the  pleasantest  in 
Java,  the  railway  being  bordered  for  miles  by  marvel- 
lously constructed  rice  terraces  which  climb  the  slopes 
of  the  Gedei,  tier  on  tier,  transforming  the  mountain- 
sides into  a  series  of  hanging  gardens.  When  the 
shallow,  water-filled  terraces  are  illuminated  by  the 
tropic  sun,  they  look  for  all  the  world  like  a  titanic 
stairway  of  silver  ascending  to  the  heavens.  Take  my 
word  for  it,  the  rice  terraces  of  the  Preangers  are  in 
themselves  worth  traveling  the  length  of  Java  to  see. 

Though  Batavia  is  the  official  capital  of  Netherlands 
India,  the  hill-station  of  Buitenzorg,  some  twenty  miles 
inland,  is  the  actual  seat  of  government  and  the  resi- 
dence of  the  Governor-General.  Buitenzorg — the 
name  means  "free  from  care" — is  to  Java  what  Simla 
is  to  India,  what  Baguio  is,  in  a  lesser  degree,  to  the 
Philippines.  It  has  often  been  compared  to  Versailles, 
and,  in  its  pleasant  existence,  in  the  enchanting  effects 
which  have  been  produced  by  its  landscape  gardeners, 


1 82  STRANGE  TRAILS 

in  its  great  white  palace  even,  one  can  trace  some 
slight  resemblance  to  the  famous  home  of  le  Roi  Soleil. 
Buitenzorg  is  conspicuously  different  from  other  Jav- 
anese cities,  partly  because,  being  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment, its  European  quarter  is  exceptionally  extensive, 
but  primarily  because  it  boasts  the  famous  Botanical 
Gardens,  in  many  respects  the  finest  in  the  world.  Its 
avenues,  shaded  by  splendid  trees,  are  lined  with 
charming,  white-walled  villas,  the  residences  of  the  gov- 
ernment officials  and  of  retired  officers  and  merchants, 
set  far  back  in  lovely,  fragrant  gardens.  The  pal- 
ace of  the  Governor-General,  a  huge,  white  building 
of  classic  lines,  faintly  reminiscent  of  the  White  House 
in  Washington,  is  superbly  situated  in  the  Botanic 
Gardens,  the  rear  overlooking  a  charming  lotos  pond, 
its  surface  covered  with  the  huge  leaves  of  the  water- 
plant  known  as  Victoria  Regla,  amid  which  numbers  of 
white  swans  drift  gracefully;  while  the  colonnaded 
front  commands  a  magnificent  view  of  a  vast  deer 
park  which  reminds  one  of  the  stately  manor  parks  of 
England. 

When  you  arrive  at  the  Hotel  Bellevue  in  Buiten- 
zorg, be  sure  and  ask  for  one  of  the  "mountain  rooms." 
The  view  which  is  commanded  by  their  balconies  has 
few  equals  in  all  the  world.  Far  in  the  distance  rises 
the  majestic,  cloud-wreathed  cone  of  Salak,  its  wooded 
slopes  wrapped  in  a  cloak  of  purple-gray.  From  its 
foot,  cutting  a  way  toward  Buitenzorg  through  a  sea  of 
foliage,  is  a  ribbon  of  brown — the  Tjidani  River.  Its 
banks,  lined  by  miles  of  waving  palms,  are  crowded 


THE  GARDEN  THAT  IS  JAVA        183 

with  the  quaint,  thatched  dwellings  of  the  natives,  hun- 
dreds of  whom — men,  women  and  children — are  bath- 
ing in  its  water.  One  of  the  most  curious  and  amus- 
ing sights  in  Java  is  that  of  the  native  women  bathing 
in  the  streams.  They  enter  the  river  wearing  their 
sarongs,  gradually  raise  them  as  they  go  deeper  into 
the  stream,  slip  them  over  their  heads  when  the  water 
has  reached  their  armpits,  and,  when  they  have  com- 
pleted their  ablutions,  reverse  the  process,  thus  achiev- 
ing the  feat  of  bathing  in  full  view  of  hundreds  of 
spectators  without  the  slightest  improper  revelation. 
Hawkinson  set  up  his  camera  on  the  bank  of  the 
Tjidani  and  spent  several  hundred  feet  of  film  in  re- 
cording one  of  these  performances.  Even  the  Pennsyl- 
vania State  Board  of  Censors  will  be  unable  to  find  any 
objection  to  that  bathing  scene. 

Though  the  gardens  of  Buitenzorg  are  a  veritable 
treasure-house  for  the  botanist  and  the  horticulturist — 
for  the  Dutch  are  the  best  gardeners  in  the  world — 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  casual  visitor  they  cannot 
compare,  to  my  way  of  thinking,  with  the  Peradenya 
Gardens  of  Ceylon.  It  is  beyond  all  doubt,  however, 
the  finest  collection  of  tropical  trees  and  plants  in  exist- 
ence. Here,  besides  full-grown  specimens  of  every 
known  tree  of  the  torrid  zone,  are  culture  gardens  for 
sugar  cane,  coffee,  tea,  rubber,  ilang-ilang;  for  all  the 
spice,  gum,  and  fruit  trees ;  for  bamboo,  rattan,  and  the 
hard  woods,  such  as  mahogany  and  teak — in  short,  for 
every  variety  of  tree  or  plant  of  commercial,  ornamen- 
tal, or  utilitarian  value.  There  are  also  gardens  for  all 


1 84  STRANGE  TRAILS 

the  gorgeous  flowers  of  Java :  the  f rangipani,  the  wax- 
white,  gold-centered  flower  of  the  dead,  the  red  and 
yellow  lantanas,  the  scarlet  poinsetta,  the  crimson  bou- 
gainvillea,  and  others  in  bewildering  variety.  There 
are  greenhouses  to  shelter  the  rarer  and  more  sensitive 
plants — to  shelter  them  not,  as  in  our  hothouses,  from 
the  cold,  but,  on  the  contrary,  from  the  heat  and  the 
withering  rays  of  the  sun.  Here  too  is  one  of  the 
finest  collections  of  orchids  in  existence,  tended  by  an 
ancient  Javanese  gardener  who  is  as  proud  of  his  curi- 
ous blooms  as  a  trainer  is  of  his  race  horses  or  a 
collector  of  his  porcelains.  As  for  the  palms,  I  had 
no  idea  that  so  many  varieties  existed  until  I  visited 
Buitenzorg — emperor  palms,  Areca  palms,  Banka 
palms,  cocoanut  palms,  fan  palms,  cabbage  palms,  sago 
palms,  date  palms,  feather  palms,  travelers'  palms,  oil 
palms,  Chuson  palms,  climbing  palms  over  a  hundred 
feet  long — palms  without  end,  Amen.  Small  wonder 
that  the  palm  is  regarded  with  affection  wherever  it  can 
be  grown,  for  what  other  tree  can  furnish  food,  shel- 
ter, clothing,  timber,  fuel,  building  materials,  fiber, 
paper,  starch,  sugar,  oil,  wax,  dyes  and  wine? 

But,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  nothing  in  those 
splendid  gardens,  not  the  stately  avenue  of  kanari  trees 
whose  interlacing  branches  form  a  nave  as  awe-inspir- 
ing as  that  of  some  great  cathedral,  not  the  rare  and 
curious  orchids  which  would  arouse  the  envy  of  a  mil- 
lionaire, appealed  to  me  so  powerfully  as  a  little  Gre- 
cian temple  of  white  marble,  all  but  hidden  by  the  en- 
circling shrubbery,  which  marks  the  sleeping-place  of 


THE  GARDEN  THAT  IS  JAVA        185 

Lady  Raffles,  wife  of  that  Sir  Stamford  Raffles  who 
once  was  the  British  lieutenant-governor  of  Java.  It 
pleases  me  to  think  that  it  is  toward  this  little,  moss- 
grown  temple  that  the  bronze  statue  of  the  great  em- 
pire-builder, which  stands  on  the  Esplanade  in  Singa- 
pore, is  peering  with  wistful  eyes,  for  on  its  base  he 
carved  these  lines: 

"Oh  thou  whom  ne'er  my  constant  heart 

One  moment  hath  forgot, 
Tho'  fate  severe  hath  bid  us  part 
Yet  still— forget  me  not." 


Batavia,  the  capital  of  the  Indies,  is  built  on  both 
banks  of  the  Jacatra  River,  in  a  swampy  and  unhealthy 
plain  at  the  head  of  a  capacious  bay.  Just  as  New 
York  is  divided  into  the  boroughs  of  Manhattan  and 
the  Bronx,  so  the  metropolis  of  Netherlands  India  is 
divided  into  the  districts  of  Batavia  and  Weltevreden, 
the  suburb  of  Meester  Cornelis  corresponding  to 
Brooklyn.  Batavia  is  the  business  quarter  of  the 
city;  Weltevreden  the  residential.  The  former,  which 
is  built  on  the  edge  of  the  harbor,  is  very  thickly  popu- 
lated and,  because  of  its  lowness,  very  unhealthy.  Only 
natives,  Malays,  Chinese  and  Arabs  live  here  and  the 
great  European  houses  which  were  once  the  homes  of 
the  Dutch  officials  and  merchants  have  either  fallen 
into  decay  or  have  been  converted  into  warehouses  and 
shops.  The  Europeans  now  live  in  Weltevreden,  or 
Meester  Cornelis,  though  they  have  their  offices  in 
the  lower  town.  Both  the  upper  and  lower  towns  are 


1 86  STRANGE  TRAILS 

traversed  by  the  Jacatra — sometimes  called  the  Tjili- 
woeng — from  which  branch  canals  that  spread  through 
the  city  in  all  directions,  thereby  emphasizing  its  dis- 
tinctly Dutch  atmosphere.  The  streets  are  for  the 
most  part  straight  and  regular,  being  paved,  as  in  the 
mother-country,  with  cobblestones.  Old  Batavia  con- 
tains very  few  relics  of  the  early  days,  but  it  is  quaint 
and  delightfully  picturesque  and  its  canals,  though  any- 
thing but  desirable  from  the  standpoint  of  health,  add 
much  to  its  individuality  and  charm.  The  most  charac- 
teristic feature  of  Batavia,  that  distinguishes  it  from 
all  other  colonial_cities  of  the  East,  is  that  in  all  its  con- 
struction, both  public  and  private,  permanency  seems  to 
be  the  dominant  note.  The  Dutch  do  not  come  to  Java, 
as  the  English  go  to  India  and  the  Americans  to  the 
Philippines,  in  order  to  amass  fortunes  in  a  few  years 
and  then  go  home ;  they  come  with  the  intention  of  re- 
maining. When  their  children  grow  up  they  are  sent 
back  to  Holland  to  be  educated,  but,  once  their  school- 
ing is  completed,  they  almost  invariably  return  to  the 
East  and  devote  their  lives  to  the  development  of  the 
land  in  which  they  were  born. 

Batavia,  which  means  literally  'Fair  meadows,'  was 
originally  called  Jacatra.  The  Dutch  established  a 
trading  post  here  in  1610,  the  land  being  obtained  from 
the  natives  by  a  trick  similar  to  that  associated  by  tra- 
dition with  the  acquisition  of  the  lower  end  of  Man- 
hattan Island  by  the  founders  of  Nieuw  Amsterdam. 
The  Javanese,  it  seems,  were  reluctant  to  sell  to  the 
Dutch  a  parcel  of  land  sufficiently  large  for  the  erec- 


THE  GARDEN  THAT  IS  JAVA        187 

tion  of  a  fort  and  trading  station,  but  after  much  dis- 
cussion they  finally  consented  to  part  with  as  much 
land  as  could  be  included  within  a  single  bullock's  hide, 
which  was  their  way  of  saying  that  their  land  was  not 
for  sale.  This  crafty  stipulation  did  not  worry  the 
equally  crafty  Dutch,  however,  for  they  promptly  ob- 
tained the  largest  hide  available,  cut  it  into  narrow 
strips,  and,  placing  these  end  to  end,  insisted  on  their 
right  to  the  very  considerable  parcel  of  ground  thus 
enclosed  under  the  terms  of  the  bargain. 

A  relic  illustrative  of  the  barbarous  punishments 
which  were  in  vogue  during  the  colony's  earlier  days  is 
to  be  seen  by  driving  a  short  distance  up  Jacatra  Road, 
in  the  lower  town.  Close  by  the  ancient  Portuguese 
church  you  will  find  a  short  section  of  old  wall.  Atop 
the  wall,  transfixed  by  a  spear-point,  is  an  object  which, 
despite  its  many  coats  of  whitewash,  is  still  recogniz- 
able as  a  human  skull.  Set  in  the  wall  is  a  tablet  bear- 
ing this  inscription: 

"In  detested  memory  of  the  traitor,  Peter  Erberveld,  who  was 
executed.  No  one  will  be  permitted  to  build,  lay  bricks  or 
plant  on  this  spot,  either  now  or  in  the  future. 

Batavia,  April  14,  1772." 

Erberveld  was  a  half-caste  agitator  who  had  con- 
spired with  certain  disaffected  natives  to  launch  a  re- 
volt, massacre  all  the  Dutch  in  Batavia,  and  have  him- 
self proclaimed  king.  Fortunately  for  the  Dutch,  the 
plot  was  betrayed  through  the  faithlessness  of  a  native 
girl  with  whom  Erberveld  was  infatuated.  Because 
of  the  imperative  need  of  safeguarding  the  little  hand- 
ful of  white  colonists  against  massacre  by  the  natives,  it 


i88  STRANGE  TRAILS 

was  decided  that  the  half-caste  should  be  punished  in 
a  manner  which  would  strike  fear  to  the  hearts  of  the 
Javanese,  who  have  no  particular  dread  of  death  in  its 
ordinary  forms.  The  judges  did  their  best  to  achieve 
this  object,  for  Erberveld  was  sentenced  to  be  impaled 
alive,  broken  on  the  wheel,  his  hands  and  head  cut  off, 
and  his  body  quartered.  Why  they  omitted  hanging 
and  burning  from  the  list  I  can  not  imagine.  The  sen- 
tence was  carried  out — the  contemporary  accounts 
record  that  he  endured  his  fate  with  silent  fortitude — 
and  his  head  is  on  the  wall  to-day.  But  I  think  that, 
were  I  the  Governor-General  of  the  Indies,  I  should 
have  that  grisly  reminder  of  the  bad  old  days  taken 
down.  Many  nations  have  family  skeletons  but  they 
usually  prefer  to  keep  them  out  of  sight. 


CHAPTER  IX 

PUPPET  RULERS  AND  COMIC  OPERA  COURTS 

HAMANGKOE  BOEWOENOE  SENOPATI  SAHADIN 
PANOTO  GOMO  KALIF  PATELAH  KANDJENG  VII, 
Ruler  of  the  World,  Spike  of  the  Universe,  and  Sultan 
of  Djokjakarta,  is  an  old,  old  man,  yet  his  brisk  walk 
and  upright  carriage  betrayed  no  trace  of  the  worries 
which  might  be  expected  to  beset  one  who  is  burdened 
with  the  responsibility  of  supporting  three  thousand 
wives  and  concubines.  When  one  achieves  a  domestic 
establishment  of  such  proportions,  however,  he  doubt- 
less shifts  the  responsibility  for  its  administration,  dis- 
cipline and  maintenance  to  subordinates,  just  as  the 
commander  of  a  division  delegates  his  authority  to  the 
officers  of  his  staff.  The  Sultan,  who  is  now  in  his 
eighty-ninth  year,  is  a  worthy  emulator  of  King  Solo- 
mon, the  lowest  estimate  which  I  heard  crediting  him 
with  one  hundred  and  eighty  children.  These  are  the 
official  ones,  as  it  were.  How  many  unofficial  ones  he 
has,  no  one  knows  but  himself.  The  youngest  of  his 
children,  now  five  years  old,  was,  I  imagine,  a  good 
deal  of  a  surprise,  being  sometimes  referred  to  by  dis- 
respectful Europeans  as  "the  Joke  of  Djokjakarta." 

Djokjakarta,  or  Djokja,  as  it  is  commonly  called,  is 
set  in  the  middle  of  a  broad  and  fertile  plain,  at 

189 


190  STRANGE  TRAILS 

the  foot  of  the  slumbering  volcano  of  Merapi,  whose 
occasional  awakenings  are  marked  by  terrific  earth- 
quakes, which  shake  the  city  to  its  foundations  and 
usually  result  in  wide-spread  destruction  and  loss  of 
life.  It  is  a  city  of  broad,  unpaved  thoroughfares, 
shaded  by  rows  of  majestic  waringins,  and  lined,  in 
the  European  quarter,  by  handsome  one-story  houses, 
with  white  walls,  green  blinds  and  Doric  porticos. 
There  are  two  hotels  in  the  city,  one  an  excellently  kept 
and  comfortable  establishment,  as  hotels  go  in  Java;  a 
score  or  so  of  large  and  moderately  well-stocked  Euro- 
pean stores,  and  many  small  shops  kept  by  Chinese ;  an 
imposing  bank  of  stone  and  concrete;  and  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  race-courses  that  I  have  ever  seen,  the 
spring  race  meeting  at  Djokja  being  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  social  events  in  Java.  The  busiest  part  of  the 
city  is  the  Chinese  quarter,  for,  throughout  the  Insu- 
linde,  commerce,  both  retail  and  wholesale,  is  largely  in 
the  hands  of  these  sober,  shrewd,  hard-working  yellow 
men,  of  whom  there  are  more  than  three  hundred 
thousand  in  Java  alone  and  double  that  number  in  the 
archipelago.  Beyond  the  European  and  Chinese 
quarters,  scattered  among  the  palms  which  form  a 
thick  fringe  about  the  town,  are  the  kampongs  of  the 
Javanese  themselves — clusters  of  bamboo-built  huts, 
thatched  with  leaves  or  grass,  encircled  by  low  mud 
walls.  Standing  well  back  from  the  street,  and 
separated  from  it  by  a  splendid  sweep  of  velvety 
lawn,  is  the  Dutch  residency,  a  dignified  building  whose 
classic  lines  reminded  me  of  the  manor  houses  built 


COMIC  OPERA  COURTS  191 

by  the  Dutch  patroons  along  the  Hudson.  A  few 
hundred  yards  away  stands  Fort  Vredenburg,  a 
moated,  bastioned,  four-square  fortification,  garrisoned 
by  half  a  thousand  Dutch  artillerymen,  whose  guns 
frown  menacingly  upon  the  native  town  and  the  palace 
of  the  Sultan.  Though  its  walls  would  crumble  before 
modern  artillery  in  half  an  hour,  it  stands  as  a  visible 
symbol  of  Dutch  authority  and  as  a  warning  to  the  dis- 
loyal that  that  authority  is  backed  up  by  cannon. 

Between  Fort  Vredenburg  and  the  Sultan's  palace 
stretches  the  broad  aloun-aloun,  its  sandy,  sun-baked 
expanse  broken  only  by  a  splendid  pair  of  waringin- 
trees,  clipped  to  resemble  royal  payongs  or  parasols. 
In  the  old  days  those  desiring  audience  with  the  sove- 
reign were  compelled  to  wait  under  these  trees,  fre- 
quently for  days  and  occasionally  for  weeks,  until  "the 
Spike  of  the  Universe"  graciously  condescended  to  re- 
ceive them.  Here  also  was  the  place  of  public  execu- 
tion. In  the  days  before  the  white  men  came,  public 
executions  on  the  aloun-aloun  provided  pleasurable 
excitement  for  the  inhabitants  of  Djokjakarta,  who 
attended  them  in  great  numbers.  The  method  em- 
ployed was  characteristic  of  Java:  the  condemned 
stood  with  his  forehead  against  a  wall,  and  the  exe- 
cutioner drove  the  point  of  a  kris  between  the  verte- 
brae at  the  base  of  the  neck,  severing  the  spinal  cord. 
But  the  gallows  and  the  rope  have  superseded  the  wall 
and  the  kris  in  Djokjakarta,  just  as  they  have  super- 
seded the  age-old  custom  of  hurling  criminals  from  the 
top  of  a  high  tower  in  Bokhara  or  of  having  the  brains 


i92  STRANGE  TRAILS 

of  the  condemned  stamped  out  by  an  elephant,  a  meth- 
od of  execution  which  was  long  in  vogue  in  Burmah. 

But,  though  certain  peculiarly  barbarous  customs 
which  were  practised  under  native  rule  have  been  abol- 
ished by  the  Dutch,  I  have  no  intention  of  suggesting 
that  life  in  Djokjakarta  has  become  colorless  and  tame. 
Au  contraire!  If  you  will  take  the  trouble  to  cross  the 
aloun-aloun  to  the  gates  of  the  palace,  your  attention 
will  be  attracted  by  a  row  of  iron-barred  cages  built 
against  the  kraton  wall.  Should  you  be  so  fortunate  as 
to  find  yourself  in  Djokjakarta  on  the  eve  of  a  religious 
festival  or  other  holiday,  each  of  these  cages  will  be 
found  to  contain  a  full-grown  tiger.  For  tiger-baiting 
remains  one  of  the  favorite  amusements  of  the  native 
princes.  Nowhere  else,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  save 
only  in  East  Africa,  where  the  Masai  warriors  en- 
circle a  lion  and  kill  it  with  their  spears,  can  you 
witness  a  sport  which  is  its  equal  for  peril  and  excite- 
ment. 

On  the  day  set  for  a  tiger-baiting  the  aloun-aloun  is 
jammed  with  spectators,  their  gorgeous  sarongs  and 
head-kains  of  batik  forming  a  sea  of  color,  while  from 
a  pavilion  erected  for  the  purpose  the  Sultan,  sur- 
rounded by  his  glittering  household  and  a  selection 
of  his  favorite  wives,  views  the  dangerous  sport  in 
safety.  In  a  cleared  space  before  the  royal  pavilion 
several  hundred  half-naked  Javanese,  armed  only  with 
spears,  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder  in  a  great  circle,  per- 
haps ten-score  yards  across,  their  spears  pointing  in- 
ward so  as  to  form  a  steel  fringe  to  the  human  barri- 


COMIC  OPERA  COURTS  193 

cade.  A  cage  containing  a  tiger,  which  has  been 
trapped  in  the  jungle  for  the  occasion,  is  hauled  for- 
ward to  the  circle's  edge.  At  a  signal  from  the  Sultan 
the  door  of  the  cage  is  opened  and  the  great  striped  cat, 
its  yellow  eyes  glaring  malevolently,  its  stiffened  tail 
nervously  sweeping  the  ground,  slips  forth  on  padded 
feet  to  crouch  defiantly  in  the  center  of  the  extempor- 
ized arena.  Occasionally,  but  very  occasionally,  the 
beast  becomes  intimidated  at  sight  of  the  waiting  spear- 
men and  the  breathless  throng  beyond  them,  but 
usually  it  is  only  a  matter  of  seconds  before  things  be- 
gin to  happen.  The  long  tail  abruptly  becomes  rigid, 
the  muscles  bunch  themselves  like  coiled  springs  be- 
neath the  tawny  skin,  the  sullen  snarling  changes  to  a 
deep-throated  roar,  and  the  great  beast  launches  itself 
against  the  levelled  spears.  Sometimes  it  tears  its  way 
through  the  ring  of  flesh  and  steel,  leaving  behind  it  a 
trail  of  dead  or  wounded  spearmen,  and  creating  con- 
sternation among  the  spectators,  who  scatter,  panic- 
stricken,  in  every  direction.  But  more  often  the  spear- 
men drive  it  back,  snarling  and  bleeding,  whereupon, 
bewildered  by  the  multitude  of  its  enemies  and  mad- 
dened by  the  pain  of  its  wounds,  it  hurls  itself  against 
another  segment  of  the  steel-fringed  cordon.  After 
a  time,  baffled  in  its  attempts  to  escape,  the  tiger  re- 
treats to  the  center  of  the  circle,  where  it  crouches, 
snarling.  Then,  at  another  signal  from  the  Sultan, 
the  spearmen  begin  to  close  in.  Smaller  and  smaller 
grows  the  circle,  closer  and  closer  come  the  remorse- 


194  STRANGE  TRAILS 

less  spear-points  .  .  .  then  a  hoarse  roar  of  fury,  a 
spring  too  rapid  for  the  eye  to  follow,  a  wild  riot  of 
brown  bodies  glistening  with  sweat  .  .  .  spear-hafts 
rising  and  falling  above  a  sea  of  turbaned  heads  as  the 
blades  are  driven  home  .  .  .  again  .  .  .  again  .  .  . 
again  .  .  .  yet  again  .  .  .  into  the  great  black-and- 
yellow  carcass,  which  now  lies  inanimate  upon  the  sand 
in  a  rapidly  widening  pool  of  crimson. 

Like  the  palaces  of  most  Asiatic  rulers,  the  kraton  of 
the  Sultan  of  Djokjakarta  is  really  a  royal  city  in  the 
heart  of  his  capital.  It  consists  of  a  vast  congeries  of 
palaces,  barracks,  stables,  pagodas,  temples,  offices, 
courtyards,  corridors,  alleys  and  bazaars,  containing 
upward  of  fifteen  thousand  inhabitants,  the  whole 
encircled  by  a  high  wall  four  miles  in  length.  Every- 
thing that  the  sovereign  can  require,  every  necessity 
and  luxury  of  life,  every  adjunct  of  pleasure,  is 
assembled  within  the  kraton.  As  the  Sultan's  world 
is  practically  bounded  by  his  palace  walls,  the  kraton 
is  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  little  kingdom  in  itself, 
for  there  dwell  within  it,  besides  the  officials  of  the 
household  and  the  women  of  the  harem,  soldiers, 
priests,  gold  and  silversmiths,  tailors,  weavers,  makers 
of  batik,  civil  engineers,  architects,  carpenters,  stone- 
masons, manufacturers  of  musical  instruments,  stage 
furniture,  and  puppets,  all  supported  by  the  court.  The 
Sultan  rarely  leaves  the  kraton  save  on  occasions  of 
ceremony,  when  he  appears  in  state,  a  thin,  aristocratic- 
looking  old  man,  somewhat  taller  than  the  average  of 


COMIC  OPERA  COURTS  195 

his  subjects,  wrapped  in  a  sarong  of  cloth-of-gold,  hung 
with  jewels,  shaded  by  a  golden  parasol,  surrounded  by 
an  Arabian  Nights  court,  and  guarded — curious  con- 
trast ! — by  a  squadron  of  exceedingly  businesslike-look- 
ing Dutch  cavalry  in  slouch  hats  and  green  denim  uni- 
forms. 

The  first  impression  which  one  receives  upon  en- 
tering the  inner  precincts  of  the  kraton  is  of  tawdri- 
ness  and  dilapidation.  Half-naked  soldiers  of  the 
royal  body-guard,  armed  with  ten-foot  pikes  and  clad 
only  in  baggy,  scarlet  breeches  and  brimless  caps  of 
black  leather,  shaped  like  inverted  flower-pots,  lounge 
beside  the  gateway  giving  access  to  the  Sultan's  quar- 
ters or  snore  blissfully  while  stretched  beneath  the 
trees.  The  "Ruler  of  the  World"  receives  his 
visitors — who,  if  they  are  foreigners,  must  always  be 
accompanied  by  the  Dutch  Resident  or  a  member  of  his 
staff — in  the  pringitan,  or  hall  of  audience,  an  im- 
mense, marble-floored  chamber,  supported  by  many 
marble  columns.  The  pringitan  is  open  on  three  sides, 
the  fourth  communicating  with  the  royal  apartments 
and  the  harem,  to  which  Europeans  are  never  ad- 
mitted. At  the  rear  of  the  pringitan  are  a  number 
of  ornate  state  beds,  hung  with  scarlet  and  heavily 
gilded,  evidently  placed  there  for  purposes  of  dis- 
play, for  they  showed  no  evidences  of  having  been 
slept  in.  Close  by  is  a  large  glass  case  containing 
specimens  of  the  taxidermist's  art,  including  a  number 
of  badly  moth-eaten  birds  of  paradise.  On  the  walls  I 
noticed  a  steel-engraving  of  Napoleon  crossing  the 


196  STRANGE  TRAILS 

Alps,  a  number  of  English  sporting  prints  depicting 
hunting  and  coaching  scenes,  and  three  villainous  chro- 
mos  of  Queen  Wilhelmina,  Prince  Henry  of  the  Neth- 
erlands, and  the  Princess  Juliana. 

Thanks  to  the  courtesy  of  the  Resident,  who  had 
notified  the  authorities  of  the  royal  household  of  our 
visit  in  advance,  we  found  that  a  series  of  Javanese 
dances  had  been  arranged  in  our  honor.  Now  Javan- 
ese dancing  is  about  as  exciting  as  German  grand 
opera,  and,  like  opera,  one  has  to  understand  it  to 
appreciate  it.  Personally,  I  should  have  preferred  to 
wander  about  the  kraton,  but  court  etiquette  demanded 
that  I  should  sit  upon  a  hard  and  exceedingly  uncom- 
fortable chair  throughout  a  long  and  humid  morning, 
with  the  thermometer  registering  one  hundred  and 
four  degrees  in  the  shade,  and  watch  a  number  of  anae- 
mic and  dissipated-looking  youths,  who  composed  the 
royal  ballet,  go  through  an  interminable  series  of  pos- 
turings  and  gestures  to  the  monotonous  music  of  a 
native  orchestra. 

Those  who  have  gained  their  ideas  of  Javanese 
dancing  from  the  performances  of  Ruth  St.  Denis  and 
Florence  O'Denishawn  have  disappointment  in  store 
for  them  when  they  go  to  Java.  To  tell  the  truth  I 
found  the  dancers  far  less  interesting  than  their  audi- 
ence, which  consisted  of  several  hundred  women  of  the 
harem,  clad  in  filmy,  semi-transparent  garments  of  the 
most  beautiful  colors,  who  watched  the  proceedings 
from  the  semi-obscurity  of  the  pringitan.  I  cannot  be 
certain,  because  the  light  was  poor  and  their  faces  were 


COMIC  OPERA  COURTS  197 

in  the  shadow,  but  I  think  that  there  were  several  ex- 
tremely good-looking  girls  among  them.  There  was 
one  in  particular  that  I  remember — a  slender,  willowy 
thing  with  an  apricot-colored  skin  and  an  oval,  piquant 
face  framed  by  masses  of  blue-black  hair.  Her  orange 
sarong  was  so  tightly  wound  about  her  that  she  might 
as  well  have  been  wearing  a  wet  silk  bathing-suit, 
so  far  as  concealing  her  figure  was  concerned.  When- 
ever she  caught  my  eye  she  smiled  mischievously.  I 
should  have  liked  to  have  seen  more  of  her,  but  an 
unami able-looking  sentry  armed  with  a  large  scimitar 
prevented. 

By  extraordinary  good  fortune  we  arrived  in  Djok- 
jakarta on  the  eve  of  the  celebration  of  a  double  royal 
wedding,  two  of  the  Sultan's  grandsons  marrying  two 
of  his  granddaughters.  Thanks  to  the  cooperation  of 
the  Dutch  Resident,  Hawkinson  was  enabled  to  obtain 
a  remarkable  series  of  pictures  of  the  highly  spectacu- 
lar marriage  ceremonies,  it  being  the  first  time,  I  be- 
lieve, that  a  motion-picture  camera  had  been  permitted 
within  the  closely  guarded  precincts  of  the  kraton. 

The  festivities,  which  occupied  several  days,  con- 
sisted of  receptions,  fireworks,  reviews,  games,  dances, 
and  religious  ceremonies,  culminating  in  a  most  impres- 
sive and  colorful  pageant,  when  the  two  bridegrooms 
proceeded  to  the  palace  in  state  to  claim  their  brides. 
Nowhere  outside  the  pages  of  The  Wizard  of  Oz  could 
one  find  such  amazing  and  fantastic  costumes  as  those 
worn  by  the  thousands  of  natives  who  took  part  in 
that  procession.  Every  combination  of  colors  was 


198  STRANGE  TRAILS 

used,  every  period  of  European  and  Asiatic  history  was 
represented.  Some  of  the  costumes  looked  as  though 
they  owed  their  inspiration  to  Bakst's  designs  for  the 
Russian  ballet — or  perhaps  Bakst  obtained  his  ideas 
in  Djokjakarta;  others  were  strongly  reminiscent 
of  Louis  XIV's  era,  of  the  courts  of  the  great  Indian 
princes,  of  the  Ziegfeld  Follies. 

The  procession  was  led  by  four  peasant  women  bear- 
ing trays  of  vegetables  and  fruits,  symbols  of  fecun- 
dity, I  assumed.  Behind  them,  sitting  cross-legged  in 
glass  cages  swung  from  poles,  each  borne  by  a  score 
of  sweating  coolies  in  scarlet  liveries,  were  the  four 
chief  messengers  of  the  royal  harem — former  concu- 
bines of  the  Sultan  who  had  once  been  noted  for  their 
influence  and  beauty.  The  cages — I  can  think  of  no 
better  description — were  of  red  lacquer,  about  four 
feet  square,  with  glass  sides,  and,  so  far  as  I  could  see, 
entirely  air-tight.  They  looked  not  unlike  large  gold- 
fish aquariums.  As  they  were  passing  us  the  proces- 
sion halted  for  a  few  moments  and  the  panting  coo- 
lies lowered  their  burdens  to  the  ground.  Whereupon 
Hawkinson,  who  is  no  respecter  of  persons  when  the 
business  of  getting  pictures  is  concerned,  set  up  his 
camera  within  six  feet  of  one  of  the  cages  and  pro- 
ceeded to  take  a  "close-up"  of  the  indignant  but  help- 
less occupant,  who,  unable  to  escape  or  even  turn  away, 
could  only  assume  an  indifference  which  she  was  evi- 
dently far  from  feeling. 

Following  the  harem  attendants  marched  a  company 
of  the  royal  body-guard,  in  scarlet  cutaway  coats  like 


COMIC  OPERA  COURTS  199 

those  worn  by  the  British  grenadiers  during  the  Ameri- 
can Revolution,  pipe-clayed  cross-belts,  white  nankeen 
breeches,  enormous  cavalry  boots,  extending  half-way 
up  the  thigh,  and  curious  hats  of  black  glazed  leather, 
of  a  shape  which  was  a  cross  between  a  fireman's  helmet 
and  the  cap  of  a  Norman  man-at-arms.  They  were 
armed  indiscriminately  with  long  pikes  and  ancient 
flint-locks,  and  marched  to  the  music  of  fife  and  drum. 
The  leader  of  the  band  danced  a  sort  of  shimmy  as  he 
marched,  at  the  same  time  tootling  on  a  flute.  He 
looked  like  the  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin.  Perhaps 
the  most  curious  feature  of  the  procession  was  pro- 
vided by  the  clowns,  both  men  and  women — an  inter- 
esting survival  of  the  court-jesters  of  the  Middle 
Ages — powdered  and  painted  like  their  fellows  of  the 
circus,  and  performing  many  of  their  stereotyped  an- 
tics. One  of  them,  wearing  an  enormous  pair  of  black 
goggles,  bestrode  a  sort  of  hobby-horse,  made  of 
papier-mache,  and,  when  he  saw  that  Hawkinson  was 
taking  his  picture,  cavorted  and  grimaced,  to  the  huge 
delight  of  the  onlookers.  The  female  clowns,  all  of 
whom  were  burdened  by  excessive  avoirdupois,  wiggled 
their  hips  and  shoulders  as  they  marched  in  a  sort  of 
Oriental  shimmy. 

Following  a  gorgeous  cavalcade  of  mounted  princes 
of  the  blood,  in  uniforms  of  all  colors,  periods,  and 
descriptions,  their  kepis  surmounted  by  towering  os- 
trich plumes,  came  a  long  procession  of  the  great  dig- 
nitaries of  the  household — the  royal  betel-box  bearer, 
the  royal  cuspidor-carrier,  and  others  bearing  on 


200  STRANGE  TRAILS 

scarlet  cushions  the  royal  toothpicks,  the  royal 
toothbrush,  the  royal  toilet  set,  and  the  royal  mirror, 
all  of  gold  set  with  jewels.  The  mothers  of  the  brides, 
painted  like  courtesans  and  hung  with  jewels,  were 
borne  by  in  sedan-chairs,  in  which  they  sat  cross-legged 
on  silken  cushions.  Then,  after  a  dramatic  pause,  their 
approach  heralded  by  a  burst  of  barbaric  music,  came 
the  brides  themselves,  each  reclining  in  an  enormous 
scarlet  litter  borne  by  fifty  coolies.  Beside  them  sat  at- 
tendants who  sprinkled  them  with  perfumes  and  cooled 
them  with  fans  of  peacock-feathers.  In  accordance  with 
an  ancient  Javanese  custom,  the  faces,  necks,  arms,  and 
breasts  of  the  brides  were  stained  with  saffron  to  a 
brilliant  yellow ;  their  cheeks  were  as  stiff  with  enamel 
as  their  garments  were  with  jewels.  Immediately  be- 
hind the  palanquins  bearing  the  brides — one  of  whom 
looked  to  be  about  thirteen,  the  other  a  few  years 
older — rode  the  bridegrooms;  one,  a  sullen-looking 
fellow  who,  I  was  told,  already  had  five  wives  and 
plainly  showed  it,  astride  a  magnificent  gray  Arab ;  the 
other,  who  was  still  a  boy,  on  a  showy  bay  stallion, 
both  animals  being  decked  with  flowers  and  capari- 
soned in  trappings  of  scarlet  leather  trimmed  with 
silver.  The  bridegrooms,  naked  to  the  waist,  were, 
like  their  brides,  dyed  a  vivid  yellow;  their  sarongs 
were  of  cloth-of-gold  and  they  were  loaded  with 
jeweled  necklaces,  bracelets,  and  anklets.  Royal  grooms 
in  scarlet  liveries  led  their  prancing  horses  and  other 
attendants,  walking  at  their  stirrups,  bore  over  their 
heads  golden  payongs,  the  Javanese  symbol  of  roy- 


COMIC  OPERA  COURTS  201 

alty.  Following  them  on  foot  was  a  great  con- 
course of  dignitaries  and  courtiers,  clad  in  cos- 
tumes of  every  color  and  description  and  walking 
under  a  forest  of  gorgeous  parasols,  the  colors  of 
which  denoted  the  rank  of  those  they  shaded.  The 
payongs  of  the  Sultan,  the  Dutch  Resident,  and  the 
royal  princes  are  of  gold,  those  of  the  princesses  of  the 
royal  family  are  yellow,  of  the  great  nobles  white,  of 
the  ministers  and  the  higher  officials  of  the  country, 
red;  of  the  lesser  dignitaries,  dark  gray,  and  so  on. 
This  sea  of  swaying  parasols,  the  gorgeous  costumes 
of  the  dignitaries,  the  fantastic  uniforms  of  the  sol- 
diery, the  richly  caparisoned  horses,  the  gilded  litters, 
the  burnished  weapons,  the  jewels  of  the  women,  the 
flaunting  banners,  and  the  rainbow-tinted  batiks  worn 
by  the  tens  of  thousands  of  native  spectators  combined 
to  form  a  scene  bewildering  in  its  variety,  dazzling  in 
its  brilliancy  and  kaleidoscopic  in  its  coloring.  Mr. 
Ziegfeld  never  produced  so  fantastic  and  colorful  a 
spectacle.  It  would  have  been  the  envy  and  the  de- 
spair of  that  prince  of  showmen,  the  late  Phineas  T. 
Barnum. 

A  dozen  miles  or  so  northwest  of  Djokjakarta, 
standing  in  the  middle  of  a  fertile  plain  which 
stretches  away  to  the  lower  slopes  of  slumbering 
Merapi,  are  the  ruins  of  Boro-Boedor,  of  all  the  Hindu 
temples  of  Java  the  largest  and  the  most  magnificent 
and  one  of  the  architectural  marvels  of  the  world. 
They  can  be  reached  from  Djokjakarta  by  motor 


202  STRANGE  TRAILS 

in  an  hour.  The  road,  which  skirts  the  foothills 
of  a  volcanic  mountain  range,  runs  through  a  number  of 
archways  roofed  with  red  tiles  which  in  the  rainy  sea- 
son afford  convenient  refuges  from  the  sudden  tropical 
showers  and  in  the  dry  season  opportunities  to  escape 
from  the  blinding  glare  of  the  sun.  Leaving  the  main 
highway  at  Kalangan,  a  quaint  hamlet  with  a  pictur- 
esque and  interesting  market,  we  turned  into  a  side 
road  and  wound  for  a  few  miles  through  cocoanut  plan- 
tations, then  the  road  ascended  and,  rounding  the  shoul- 
der of  a  little  hill,  we  saw,  through  the  trees,  a  squat, 
pyramidal  mass  of  reddish  stone,  broken,  irregular  and 
unimposing.  It  was  Tjandi  Boro-Boedor  (the  name 
means  "shrine  of  the  many  Buddhas")  considered  by 
many  authorities  the  most  interesting  Buddhist  remains 
in  existence.  Though  in  magnitude  it  cannot  compare 
with  such  great  Buddhist  monuments  as  those  at  Ajunta 
in  India,  and  Angkor  in  Cambodia,  yet  in  its  beautiful 
symmetry  and  its  wealth  of  carving  it  is  superior  to 
them  all. 

Strictly  speaking,  Boro-Boedor  is  not  a  temple  but 
a  hill,  rising  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  above 
the  plain,  encased  with  terraces  constructed  of  hewn 
lava-blocks  and  crowded  with  sculptures,  which,  if 
placed  side  by  side,  would  extend  for  upwards  of  three 
miles.  The  lowest  terrace  now  above  ground  forms 
a  square,  each  side  approximately  five  hundred  feet 
long.  About  fifty  feet  higher  there  is  another  terrace 
of  similar  shape.  Then  follow  four  other  terraces  of 
more  irregular  contour,  the  structure  being  crowned 


COMIC  OPERA  COURTS  203 

by  a  dome  or  cupola,  fifty  feet  in  diameter,  surrounded 
by  sixteen  smaller  bell-shaped  cupolas,  known  as 
dagobas.  The  subjects  of  the  bas-reliefs  lining  the 
lowest  terrace  are  of  the  most  varied  description, 
forming  a  picture  gallery  of  landscapes,  agricultural 
and  household  episodes  and  incidents  of  the  chase, 
mingled  with  mythological  and  religious  scenes.  It 
would  seem,  indeed,  as  though  it  had  been  the  archi- 
tect's intention  to  gradually  wean  the  pilgrims  from 
the  physical  to  the  spiritual,  for  as  they  began  to  as- 
cend from  stage  to  stage  of  the  temple-hill  they  were 
insensibly  drawn  from  material,  every-day  things  to  the 
realities  of  religion,  so  that  by  the  time  the  dagoba  at 
the  top  was  reached  they  had  passed  through  a  course 
of  religious  instruction,  as  it  were,  and  were  ready,  with 
enlightened  eyes,  to  enter  and  behold  the  image  of 
Buddha,  symbolically  left  imperfect,  as  beyond  the 
power  of  human  art  to  realize  or  portray.  From  base 
to  summit  the  whole  hill  is  really  a  great  picture-bible 
of  the  Buddhist  creed. 

The  building  of  Boro-Boedor  was  probably  begun 
in  the  ninth  century,  when  King  Asoka  was  distribut- 
ing the  supposed  remains  of  Buddha  throughout  all 
the  countries  of  the  East  in  an  endeavor  to  spread  the 
faith.  A  portion  of  the  remains  was  brought  to  Boro- 
Boedor,  which  had  been  the  center  of  Buddhist  influ- 
ence in  Java  ever  since  603,  when  the  Indian  ruler, 
Guzerat,  settled  in  Middle  Java  with  five  thousand  of 
his  followers.  In  the  sixteenth  century,  when  a  wave 
of  Mohammedanism  swept  the  island  from  end  to 


204  STRANGE  TRAILS 

end,  the  Buddhist  temples  being  destroyed  by  the  fa- 
natic followers  of  the  Prophet  and  the  priests  slaugh- 
tered on  their  altars,  the  Buddhists,  in  order  to  save 
the  famous  shrine  from  desecration  and  destruction, 
buried  it  under  many  feet  of  earth.  Thus  the  great 
monument  remained,  hidden  and  almost  forgotten,  for 
three  hundred  years,  but  during  the  brief  period  of 
British  rule  in  Java,  Sir  Stamford  Raffles  ordered  its 
excavation,  the  work  being  accomplished  in  less  than 
two  months.  Since  then  the  Dutch  have  taken  further 
steps  to  restore  and  preserve  it,  though  unfortunately 
the  stone  of  which  it  is  built  was  too  soft  to  withstand 
the  wear  and  tear  of  centuries,  many  of  the  bas-reliefs 
now  being  almost  effaced.  It  remains,  however,  one 
of  the  greatest  religious  monuments  of  all  time. 

Conditions  at  Surakarta — usually  called  Solo  for 
short — are  the  exact  counterpart  of  those  in  Djokja- 
karta :  the  same  puppet  ruler,  who  is  called  Susuhunan 
instead  of  Sultan,  the  same  semi-barbaric  court  life, 
the  same  fantastic  costumes,  a  Dutch  resident,  a  Dutch 
fort,  and  a  Dutch  garrison.  But  the  kraton  of  the 
Susuhunan  is  far  better  kept  than  that  of  his  fellow 
ruler  at  Djokjakarta,  and  shows  more  evidences  of 
Europeanization.  The  troopers  of  the  royal  body- 
guard are  smart,  soldierly-looking  fellows  in  well- 
cut  uniforms  of  European  pattern,  to  which  a  dis- 
tinctly Eastern  touch  is  lent,  however,  by  their  steel 
helmets,  their  brass-embossed  leather  shields,  their 
scimitars,  and  their  shoulder-guards  of  chain  mail.  The 


COMIC  OPERA  COURTS  205 

royal  stables,  which  contain  several  hundred  fine  Aus- 
tralian horses  and  a  number  of  beautiful  Sumbawan  po- 
nies, together  with  a  score  or  more  gilt  carriages  of 
state,  are  as  immaculately  kept  as  those  of  Buckingham 
Palace.  In  the  palace  garage  I  was  shown  a  row  of 
powerful  Fiats,  gleaming  with  fresh  varnish  and  pol- 
ished brass,  and  beside  them,  as  among  equals,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  well-known  Ford  family  of  Detroit,  proudly 
bearing  on  its  panels  the  ornate  arms  of  the  Susuhunan. 
I  felt  as  though  I  had  encountered  an  old  friend  who 
had  married  into  royalty. 

As  though  we  had  not  seen  enough  dancing  at  Djok- 
jakarta, I  found  that  they  had  arranged  another  per- 
formance for  us  in  the  kraton  at  Surakarta.  This 
time,  however,  the  dancers  were  girls,  most  of  them 
only  ten  or  twelve  years  old  and  none  of  them  more 
than  half-way  through  their  teens.  They  wore  sarongs 
of  the  most  exquisite  colors — purple,  heliotrope,  vio- 
let, rose,  geranium,  cerise,  lemon,  sky-blue,  burnt- 
orange — and  they  floated  over  the  marble  floor  of  the 
great  hall  like  enormous  butterflies.  As  a  special  mark 
of  the  Susuhunan's  favor,  the  performance  concluded 
with  a  spear  dance  by  four  princes  of  the  royal  house 
— blase,  decadent-looking  youths,  who  spend  their 
waking  hours,  so  the  Dutch  official  who  acted  as  my 
cicerone  told  me,  in  dancing,  opium-smoking,  cock- 
fighting  and  gambling,  virtually  their  only  companions 
being  the  women  of  the  harem.  If  the  Dutch  Govern- 
ment does  not  actively  encourage  dissipation  and  de- 
bauchery among  the  native  princes,  neither  does  it 


206  STRANGE  TRAILS 

take  any  steps  to  discourage  it,  the  idea  being,  I  imag- 
ine, that  Holland's  administrative  problems  in  the 
Forstenlanden  would  be  greatly  simplified  were  the 
reigning  families  to  die  out.  The  princes,  who  were 
armed  with  javelins  and  krises,  performed  for  our 
benefit  a  Terpsichorean  version  of  one  of  the  tales  of 
Javanese  mythology.  The  dance  was  characterized  by 
the  utmost  deliberation  of  movement,  the  dancers  hold- 
ing certain  postures  for  several  seconds  at  a  time, 
reminding  me,  in  their  rigid  self-consciousness,  of  the 
"living  pictures"  which  were  so  popular  in  America 
twenty  years  ago. 

All  of  the  dancers,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  were 
of  the  blood  royal  and  one,  I  was  told,  was  in  the 
direct  line  of  succession.  Judging  from  the  vacuity  of 
his  expression,  the  Dutch  have  no  reason  to  anticipate 
any  difficulty  in  maintaining  their  mastery  in  Soera- 
karta  when  he  comes  to  the  throne.  But  the  Dutch 
officials  take  no  chances  with  the  intrigue-loving  native 
princes ;  they  keep  them  under  close  surveillance  at  all 
times.  It  is  one  of  the  disadvantages  of  Christian 
governments  ruling  peoples  of  alien  race  and  religion 
that  methods  of  revolt  are  not  always  visible  to  the 
naked  eye,  and  even  the  Dutch  Intelligence  Service  in 
the  Indies,  efficient  as  it  is,  has  no  means  of  knowing 
what  is  going  on  in  the  forbidden  quarters  of  the 
kratons.  In  Java,  as  in  other  Moslem  lands,  more 
than  one  bloody  uprising  has  been  planned  in  the  safe- 
ty and  secrecy  of  the  harem.  Potential  disloyalty  is 
neutralized,  therefore,  by  a  discreet  display  of  force. 


COMIC  OPERA  COURTS  207 

Throughout  the  performance  in  the  palace  a  Dutch 
trooper  in  field  gray,  bandoliers  stuffed  with  cartridges 
festooned  across  his  chest  and  a  carbine  tucked  under 
his  arm,  paced  slowly  up  and  down — an  ever-present 
symbol  of  Dutch  power — watching  the  posturing 
princes  with  a  sardonic  eye.  That  is  Holland's  way 
of  showing  that,  should  disaffection  show  its  head,  she 
is  ready  to  deal  with  it. 


CHAPTER  X 

THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  TO 
ELEPHANT  LAND 

SINCE  the  world  began  the  peacock's  tail  which  we 
call  the  Malay  Peninsula  has  swung  down  from  Siam 
to  sweep  the  Sumatran  shore.  A  peacock's  tail  not 
merely  in  configuration  but  in  its  gorgeousness  of  color. 
Green  jungle — a  bewildering  tangle  of  trees,  shrubs, 
bushes,  plants,  and  creepers,  hung  with  ferns  and 
mosses,  bound  together  with  rattans  and  trailing  vines 
— clothes  the  mountains  and  the  lowlands,  its  verdant 
riot  checked  only  by  the  sea.  Penetrating  the  deepest 
recesses  of  the  jungle  a  network  of  little,  dusky,  wind- 
ing rivers,  green-blue  because  the  sky  that  is  reflected 
in  them  is  filtered  through  the  interlacing  branches. 
Orchids — death-white,  saffron,  pink,  violet,  purple, 
crimson — festooned  from  the  higher  boughs  like  in- 
candescent lights  of  colored  glass.  The  gilded,  cone- 
shaped  towers  of  Buddhist  temples  rising  above  steep 
roofs  tiled  in  orange,  red,  or  blue,  their  eaves  hung 
with  hundreds  of  tiny  bells  which  tinkle  musically  in 
every  breeze.  The  scarlet  splotches  of  spreading  fire- 
trees  against  whitewashed  walls.  Shaven-headed 
priests  in  yellow  robes  offering  flowers  and  food  to 
stolid-faced  images  of  brass  and  clay.  Long  files  of 

208 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  209 

elephants,  bearing  men  and  merchandise  beneath  their 
hooded  howdahs,  rocking  and  rolling  down  the  dim 
and  deep-worn  forest  trails.  Snowy,  hump-backed 
bullocks,  driven  by  naked  brown  men,  splashing 
through  the  shallow  water  on  the  rice-fields  harnessed 
to  ploughs  as  primeval  in  design  as  those  our  Aryan  an- 
cestors used.  Bronze-brown  women,  their  lithe  figures 
wrapped  in  gaily  colored  cottons,  busying  themselves 
about  frail,  leaf-thatched  dwellings  perched  high  on 
bamboo  stilts  above  the  river-banks.  And,  arching 
over  all,  a  sky  as  flawlessly  blue  as  the  dome  of  the 
Turquoise  Mosque  in  Samarland.  Such  is  the  land 
that  the  ancients  called  the  Golden  Chersonese  but 
which  is  labeled  in  the  geographies  of  today  as  Lower 
Siam  and  the  Malay  States. 

If  you  will  look  at  the  map  you  will  see  that  Lower 
Siam  extends  half-way  down  the  Malay  Peninsula,  run- 
ning across  it  from  coast  to  coast  and  thus  forming  a 
barrier  between  British  Burmah  and  British  Malaya, 
precisely  as  German  East  Africa  formerly  separated 
the  British  holdings  in  the  northern  and  southern  por- 
tions of  the  Dark  Continent.  And,  were  I  to  indulge 
in  prophecy,  I  should  say  that  the  day  would  come 
when  the  fate  of  German  East  Africa  will  overtake 
Lower  Siam.  History  has  shown,  again  and  again, 
that  the  nation,  particularly  if  it  is  as  small  and  feeble 
as  Siam,  which  forms  a  barrier  between  two  portions 
of  a  powerful  and  aggressive  empire  is  in  anything 
but  an  enviable  position. 

Politically   that   portion   of   the   Malay   Peninsula 


210  STRANGE  TRAILS 

which  is  within  the  British  sphere  is  divided  into  three 
sections :  the  colony  of  the  Straits  Settlements,  the  four 
Federated  Malay  States,  and  the  five  non-federated 
states  under  British  protection.  The  crown  colony  of 
the  Straits  Settlements  consists  of  the  twenty-seven- 
mile-long  island  of  Singapore  and  the  much  larger 
island  of  Penang;  the  territory  of  Province  Wellesley, 
on  the  mainland  opposite  Penang;  Malacca,  a  narrow 
coastal  strip  between  Singapore  and  Penang;  and,  to 
the  north  of  it,  the  tiny  island  and  insignificant  terri- 
tory known  as  the  Dingdings.  By  the  acquisition  of 
these  small  and  scattered  but  strategically  important 
territories,  England  obtained  control  of  the  Straits  of 
Malacca,  which  form  the  gateway  to  the  China  Seas. 
In  1896,  as  the  result  of  a  treaty  between  the  British 
Government  and  the  rajahs  of  the  native  states  of 
Perak,  Selangor,  Pahang,  and  Negri  Sembilan,  these 
four  states  were  brought  into  a  confederation  under 
British  protection.  Though  they  are  still  under  the 
nominal  rule  of  their  own  rajahs — now  known  as  sul- 
tans— each  has  a  British  adviser  attached  to  his  court, 
the  Governor  of  the  Straits  Settlements  being  ex 
officio  the  High  Commissioner  and  administrative  head 
of  the  confederation.  The  non-federated  states  con- 
sist of  Kedah,  Perlis,  Kelantan,  and  Trengganu,  the 
rights  of  suzerainty,  protection,  administration,  and 
control  of  which  were  transferred  by  treaty  from  Siam 
to  Great  Britain  in  1909,  and  the  Sultanate  of  Johore, 
which  occupies  the  extreme  southern  end  of  the  penin- 
sula, opposite  Singapore.  In  the  non-federated,  as  in 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  211 

the  Federated  Malay  States,  British  advisers  reside  at 
the  courts  of  the  native  sultans. 

Starting  at  Johore,  which,  some  Biblical  authorities 
assert,  is  identical  with  the  Land  of  Ophir,  and  run- 
ning through  the  heart  of  British  Malaya  from  south 
to  north,  is  the  Federated  Malay  States  Railway, 
which  has  recently  been  linked  up  with  the  Siamese 
State  Railways,  thus  making  it  possible  to  travel  by 
rail  from  Singapore  to  Bangkok  in  about  four  days. 
Aside  from  the  heat  (in  the  railway  carriages  the  mer- 
cury occasionally  climbs  to  120),  the  insects,  the  dust, 
and  the  swarms  of  sweating  natives  who  pile  into  every 
compartment  regardless  of  the  class  designated  on  their 
tickets,  the  journey  is  a  comfortable  one. 

That  section  of  the  F.  M.  S.  Railways  which  tra- 
verses the  Sultanate  of  Johore  runs  through  the  great- 
est tiger  country  in  all  Asia.  The  tiger  is  to  Johore 
what  the  elephant  is  to  Siam  and  the  kangaroo  to 
Australia — a  sort  of  national  trademark.  Even  the 
postage  stamps  bear  an  engraving  of  the  striped  mon- 
arch of  the  jungle.  There  is  no  place  in  the  world,  so 
far  as  I  am  aware,  save  only  a  zoo,  of  course,  where 
one  can  get  a  shot  at  a  tiger  so  quickly  and  with  such 
minimum  of  effort.  In  this  connection  I  heard  a  story 
at  the  Singapore  Club,  the  truth  of  which  is  vouched 
for  by  those  with  whom  I  was  having  tiffin.  Shortly 
before  the  war,  it  seems,  an  American  business  man 
who  had  amassed  a  fortune  in  the  export  business,  and 
who  was  noted  even  in  down-town  New  York  as  a 
hustler,  was  returning  from  a  business  trip  to  China. 


212  STRANGE  TRAILS 

In  the  smoking-room  of  the  home  ward  bound  liner, 
over  the  highballs  and  cigars,  he  listened  to  the  stories 
of  an  Englishman  who  had  been  hunting  big  game  in 
Asia.  The  conversation  eventually  turned  to  tigers. 

"Johore's  the  place  for  tigers,"  the  Englishman  re- 
marked, pouring  himself  another  peg  of  whiskey. 
"The  beggars  are  as  thick  as  foxes  in  Leicestershire. 
You're  jolly  well  certain  of  bagging  one  the  first  day 
out." 

"I've  always  wanted  a  tiger  skin  for  my  smoking 
room,"  commented  the  American.  "Could  buy  one  at 
a  fur  shop  on  the  Avenue,  of  course,  but  I  want  one 
that  I  shot  myself.  Think  I'll  run  over  to  Johore  while 
we're  at  Singapore  and  get  one." 

"But  I  say,  my  dear  fellow,"  expostulated  the  Briton, 
"you  really  can't  do  that,  you  know.  We  only  stop  at 
Singapore  for  half  a  day — get  in  at  daybreak  and 
leave  again  at  noon.  You  can't  get  a  tiger  in  that 


time." 


"There's  no  such  word  as  'can't'  in  my  business. 
Business  methods  will  bring  results  in  tiger  shooting 
as  quickly  as  in  anything  else,"  retorted  the  American, 
rising  and  heading  for  the  wireless  room. 

A  few  hours  later  the  American's  representative  in 
Singapore,  a  youngster  who  had  himself  been  educated 
in  the  school  of  American  business,  received  a  wireless 
message  from  the  head  of  his  house.  It  read:  "Arriv- 
ing Singapore  daybreak  Thursday.  Leaving  noon 
same  day.  Wish  to  shoot  tiger  in  Johore.  Make 
arrangements." 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  213 

Now  the  representative  in  Singapore  knew  perfectly 
well  that  his  promotion,  if  not  his  job,  depended  upon 
his  employer  getting  a  tiger.  And,  as  the  steamer  was 
due  in  four  days,  there  was  no  time  to  spare.  From 
the  director  of  the  Singapore  zoo  he  purchased  for 
considerably  above  the  market  price,  a  decrepit  and 
somewhat  moth-eaten  tiger  of  advanced  years,  which 
he  had  transported  across  the  straits  to  Johore,  whence 
it  was  conveyed  by  bullock  cart  to  a  spot  in  the  edge 
of  the  jungle,  a  dozen  miles  outside  the  town,  where  it 
was  turned  loose  in  an  enclosure  of  wire  and  bamboo 
hastily  constructed  for  the  purpose. 

When  the  steamer  bearing  the  American  magnate 
dropped  anchor  in  the  harbor,  the  local  representative 
went  aboard  with  the  quarantine  officer.  Ten  minutes 
later,  thanks  to  arrangements  made  in  advance,  a 
launch  was  bearing  him  and  his  chief  to  the  shore, 
where  a  motor  car  was  waiting.  It  is  barely  a  dozen 
miles  from  the  wharf  at  Singapore  to  Woodlands,  the 
ferry  station  opposite  Johore,  and  the  driver  had 
orders  to  shatter  the  speed  laws.  A  waiting  launch 
streaked  across  the  two  miles  of  channel  which  sepa- 
rates the  island  from  the  mainland  and  drew  up  along- 
side the  quay  at  Johore,  where  another  car  was  wait- 
ing. The  roads  are  excellent  in  the  sultanate,  and 
thirty  minutes  of  fast  driving  brought  the  two  Ameri- 
cans to  the  zareba,  within  which  the  tiger,  guarded  by 
natives,  was  peacefully  breakfasting  on  a  goat. 

"He's  a  real  man-eater,"  whispered  the  agent,  hand- 
ing his  employer  a  loaded  express  rifle.  "We  only 


2i4  STRANGE  TRAILS 

located  him  yesterday.  Lured  him  with  a  goat,  you 
know  .  .  .  the  smell  of  blood  attracts  'em.  You'd 
better  put  a  bullet  in  him  before  he  sees  us.  One  just 
behind  the  shoulder  will  do  the  business." 

The  magnate,  trembling  with  excitement  for  the  first 
time  in  his  busy  life,  drew  bead  on  the  tawny  stripe 
behind  the  tiger's  shoulder.  There  was  a  shattering 
roar,  the  great  beast  pawed  convulsively  at  the  air, 
then  rolled  on  its  side  and  lay  motionless. 

"Good  work,"  the  local  man  commented  approving- 
ly. "It's  only  an  hour  and  forty  minutes  since  we  left 
the  boat — a  record  for  tiger  shooting,  I  fancy.  We'll 
be  back  at  Raffles'  for  breakfast  by  nine  o'clock  and 
after  that  I'll  show  you  round  the  city.  Don't  worry 
about  the  skin,  sir.  The  natives'll  tend  to  the  skin- 
ning and  I'll  have  it  on  board  before  you  sail." 

Now — so  the  story  goes — after  dinner  in  the  mag- 
nate's New  York  home  he  takes  his  guests  into  the 
smoking  room  for  cigars  and  coffee.  Spread  before 
the  fireplace  is  a  great  orange  and  black  pelt,  a  trifle 
faded  it  is  true,  but  indubitably  the  skin  of  a  tiger. 

"Yes,"  the  host  complacently  in  reply  to  his  guests' 
admiring  comments,  "a  real  man-eater.  Shot  him  my- 
self in  the  Johore  jungle.  Easy  enough  to  get  a 
tiger  if  you  use  American  business  methods." 

When,  upon  reaching  Singapore,  the  great  seaport 
at  the  tip  of  the  Malay  Peninsula  which  is  the  gateway 
to  the  Malay  States  and  to  Siam,  I  learned  that 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  215 

small  but  not  uncomfortable  steamers  sail  weekly  for 
Bangkok — a  four-day  voyage  if  the  monsoon  is  blow- 
ing in  the  right  direction — or  that,  by  crossing  the  nar- 
row straits  on  the  ferry  to  Johore,  we  could  reach  the 
capital  of  Siam  in  about  the  same  time  by  the  Federated 
Malay  States  and  Siamese  railways,  there  seemed  no 
valid  excuse  for  keeping  the  Negros  any  longer.  So, 
bidding  good-by  to  Captain  Galvez  and  his  officers,  I 
gave  orders  that  the  little  vessel,  on  which  we  had 
cruised  upward  of  six  thousand  miles,  amid  some  of  the 
least-known  islands  in  the  world,  should  return  to  Ma- 
nila. To  leave  her  was  like  breaking  home  ties,  and  I 
confess  that  when  she  steamed  slowly  out  of  the  har- 
bor, homeward  bound,  with  her  Filipino  crew  lining 
the  rail  and  Captain  Galvez  waving  to  us  from  the 
bridge  and  the  flag  at  her  taffrail  dipping  in  farewell,  I 
suddenly  felt  lonely  and  deserted. 

When  the  people  whom  I  met  in  Singapore  learned 
that  I  was  contemplating  visiting  Siam  they  attempted 
to  dissuade  me.  I  was  warned  that  the  train  service  up 
the  peninsula  was  uncertain,  that  the  steamers  up  the 
gulf  were  uncomfortable,  that  the  hotel  in  Bangkok  was 
impossible,  the  dirt  incredible,  the  heat  unendurable, 
the  climate  unhealthy.  And  when,  desiring  to  learn 
whether  these  indictments  were  true,  I  attempted  to 
obtain  reliable  information  about  the  country  to  which 
I  was  going,  I  found  that  none  was  to  be  had.  The  lat- 
est volume  on  Siam  which  I  could  find  in  Singapore 
bookshops  bore  an  1886  imprint.  The  managers  of  the 
two  leading  hotels  in  Singapore  knew,  or  professed  to 


2i6  STRANGE  TRAILS 

know,  nothing  about  hotel  accommodations  in  Bang- 
kok. Though  the  administration  of  the  Federal  Malay 
States  Railways  generously  offered  me  the  use  of  a  pri- 
vate car  over  their  system,  I  could  obtain  no  reliable  in- 
formation as  to  what  connections  I  could  make  at  the 
Siamese  frontier  or  when  I  would  reach  Bangkok.  And 
the  only  guide  book  on  Siam  which  I  could  discover — 
quite  an  excellent  little  volume,  by  the  way — was  pub- 
lished by  the  Imperial  Japanese  Railways! 

The  Siamese  are  by  no  means  opposed  to  foreigners 
visiting  their  country,  and  they  would  welcome  the 
development  of  its  resources  by  foreign  capital,  but, 
owing  to  the  insularity,  indifference,  timidity  and  pride 
which  are  inherent  in  the  Siamese  character,  they  have 
taken  no  steps  to  bring  their  country  to  the  attention 
of  the  outside  world.  When  one  notes  the  energetic 
advertising  campaigns  which  are  being  conducted  by 
the  governments  of  Japan,  China,  Java,  and  even  Indo- 
China,  where  the  visitor  is  confronted  at  every  turn  by 
advertisements  urging  him  to  "Spend  the  Week-End 
at  Kamakura,"  "Go  to  the  Great  Wall,"  "Don't 
Miss  Boroboedor  and  Djokjakarta,"  "Take  Advant- 
age of  the  Special  Fares  to  the  Ruins  of  Angkor,"  you 
wonder  why  Siam,  which  has  so  much  that  is  novel 
and  picturesque  to  offer,  makes  no  effort  to  swell  its 
revenues  by  encouraging  the  tourist  industry.  That 
the  royal  prince  who  is  the  Minister  of  Communica- 
tions recently  made  a  tour  of  the  United  States  for 
the  purpose  of  studying  American  railway  methods 
suggests,  however,  that  the  Land  of  the  White  Ele- 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  217 

phant  is  planning  to  get  its  share  of  tourist  travel  in 
the  future. 

I  might  as  well  admit  frankly  that  my  first  impres- 
sions of  the  Siamese  capital  were  extremely  disappoint- 
ing. I  didn't  expect  to  be  conveyed  to  my  hotel  atop  a 
white  elephant,  through  streets  lined  with  salaaming 
natives,  but  neither  did  I  expect  to  make  a  wild 
dash  through  thoroughfares  as  crowded  with  traf- 
fic as  Fifth  Avenue,  in  a  vehicle  which  unmistakably 
owed  its  paternity  to  Mr.  Henry  Ford,  or  to  be  bruskly 
halted  at  busy  street  crossings  by  the  upraised  hand 
of  a  helmeted  and  white-gloved  traffic  policeman. 
Nor,  upon  my  arrival  at  the  hotel — there  is  only  one 
in  Bangkok  deserving  of  the  name — did  I  expect  to 
find  on  the  breakfast  table  a  breakfast  food  manu- 
factured in  Battle  Creek,  or  beside  my  bed  an  electric 
fan  made  in  New  Britain,  Connecticut,  or  behind  the 
desk  a  very  wide  awake  American  youth — the  son,  I 
learned  later,  of  one  of  the  American  advisers 
to  the  Siamese  Government — who  eagerly  inquired 
whether  I  had  brought  any  American  newspapers  with 
me  and  whether  I  thought  the  pennant  would  be  won 
by  the  Giants  or  the  White  Sox. 

Bangkok,  which,  with  its  suburbs,  has  a  population 
about  equal  to  that  of  Boston,  is  built  on  the  banks  of 
the  country's  greatest  river,  the  Menam,  some  forty 
miles  from  its  mouth.  Though  the  city  has  a  number 
of  fine  thoroughfares,  straight  as  though  laid  out  with 
a  pencil  and  ruler,  between  them  lie  labyrinths  of  dim 
and  evil-smelling  bazaars,  their  narrow,  winding, 


2i8  STRANGE  TRAILS 

cobble-paved  streets  lined  on  either  side  by  stalls 
in  which  are  displayed  for  sale  all  the  products  of  the 
country.  Because  of  the  intense  heat  these  stalls 
are  open  in  front,  so  that  the  occupants  work 
and  eat  and  sleep  in  full  view  of  everyone  who 
passes.  The  barber  shaves  the  heads  of  his  customers 
while  they  squat  in  the  edge  of  the  roadway.  In  the 
licensed  gambling  houses  groups  of  excited  men  and 
women  crowd  about  gaming  tables  presided  over 
by  greasy,  half-naked  Chinese  croupiers,  and,  when 
they  have  squandered  their  trifling  earnings,  hasten  to 
the  nearest  pawnshop  with  any  garment  or  article  of 
furniture  that  is  not  absolutely  indispensable  to  their 
existence  in  order  to  obtain  a  few  more  coins  to  hazard 
and  eventually  to  lose.  As  a  result  of  this  passion  for 
gambling,  the  city  is  full  of  pawnshops,  some  streets 
containing  scarcely  anything  else.  At  the  far  end  of 
one  of  the  bazaar  streets  is  the  largest  idol  manu- 
factory in  Siam,  for  the  temples  whose  graceful,  taper- 
ing towers  dot  the  landscape  are  filled  with  images  of 
Buddha,  in  all  sizes  and  of  all  materials  from  wood 
to  gold  set  with  jewels,  most  of  them  donated  by  the 
devout  in  order  to  "make  merit"  for  themselves.  As 
all  Buddhists  wish  to  accumulate  as  much  merit  for 
themselves  as  possible,  in  order  to  be  assured  at  death 
of  a  through  ticket  to  Nirvana,  the  idol-making  indus- 
try is  in  a  flourishing  condition. 

Pushing  their  way  through  the  crowded  thorough- 
fares, their  raucous  cries  rising  above  the  clamor,  go 
the  ice  cream  and  curry  vendors,  carrying  the  para- 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  219 

phernalia  of  their  trade  slung  from  bamboo  poles 
borne  upon  the  shoulders — perambulating  cafeterias 
and  soda  fountains,  as  it  were.  For  a  satang — a  coin 
equivalent  to  about  a  quarter  of  a  cent — you  can  pur- 
chase a  bowl  of  rice,  while  the  expenditure  of  an- 
other satang  will  provide  you  with  an  assortment  of 
savories  or  relishes,  made  from  elderly  meat,  decayed 
fish,  decomposed  prawns  and  other  toothsome  ingredi- 
ents, which  you  heap  upon  the  rice,  together  with  a 
greenish-yellow  curry  sauce  which  makes  the  concoc- 
tion look  as  though  it  were  suffering  from  a  severe 
attack  of  jaundice.  These  relishes  are  cooked,  or 
rather  re-warmed,  by  the  simple  process  of  suspending 
them  in  a  sort  of  sieve  in  a  pot  of  boiling  water,  the 
same  pot  and  the  same  water  serving  for  all  customers 
alike.  By  this  arrangement,  the  man  who  takes  his 
snack  at  the  close  of  the  day  has  the  advantage  of 
receiving  not  merely  what  he  orders,  but  also  flavors 
and  even  floating  remnants  from  the  dishes  ordered  by 
all  those  who  have  preceded  him.  The  ice  cream 
vendors  drive  a  roaring  trade  in  a  concoction  the  basis 
of  which  is  finely  shaven  ice,  looking  like  half-frozen 
and  very  dirty  slush,  sweetened  with  sugar  and  flav- 
ored, according  to  the  purchaser's  taste  from  an  array 
of  metal-topped  bottles  such  as  barbers  use  for  bay 
rum  and  hair  oil.  But,  being  cold  and  sweet,  "Isa-kee," 
as  the  Chinese  vendors  call  it,  is  as  popular  among  the 
lower  classes  in  Siam  as  ice  cream  cones  are  in  the 
United  States. 

Though  the  streets  of  Bangkok  are  crowded  with 


220  STRANGE  TRAILS 

vehicles  of  every  description — ramshackle  and  dis- 
reputable rickshaws,  the  worst  to  be  found  in  all  the 
East,  drawn  by  sweating  coolies;  the  boxes  of  wood 
and  glass  on  wheels,  called  gharries,  drawn  by  de- 
crepit ponies  whose  harness  is  pieced  out  with  rope; 
creaking  bullock  carts  driven  by  Tamils  from  Southern 
India ;  bicycles,  ridden  by  natives  whose  European  hats 
and  coats  are  in  striking  contrast  to  their  bare  legs 
and  brilliant  panungs;  clanging  street  cars,  as  crowded 
with  humanity  as  those  on  Broadway;  motors  of5 
every  size  and  make,  from  jitneys  to  Rolls-Royces — 
the  bulk  of  the  city's  traffic  is  borne  on  the  great 
river  and  the  countless  canals  which  empty  into  it. 
Bangkok  has  been  called,  and  not  ineptly,  the  Venice 
of  the  East,  for  it  is  covered  with  a  net-work  of 
canals,  or  klongs,  which  spread  out  in  every  direc- 
tion. In  sampans,  houseboats  and  other  craft,  moored 
to  the  banks  of  these  canals,  dwells  the  major  portion 
of  the  city's  inhabitants.  The  city's  water  population 
is  complete  in  itself  and  perfectly  independent  of  its 
neighbors  on  land,  for  it  has  its  own  shops  and  dwell- 
ings, its  own  markets  and  restaurants,  its  own  theaters, 
and  gambling  establishments,  its  own  priests  and  po- 
lice. When  you  go  to  Bangkok,  I  strongly  advise  you 
to  hire  a  sampan  and  visit  the  floating  portion  of  the 
city  after  nightfall.  The  houseboats  are  open  at  both 
ends  and  you  will  see  many  things  that  the  guidebooks 
fail  to  mention. 

The  Oriental  Hotel,  the  banks,  the  shipping  offices, 
the  business  houses,  and  all  the  legations  save  only  the 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE    221 

American,  are  clustered  on  or  near  the  river  in  a  low- 
lying  and  unattractive  quarter  of  the  town.  But  fol- 
low the  long,  dingy,  squalid  highway  known  as  the 
New  Road,  a  thoroughfare  lined  with  third-rate  Chi- 
nese shops  and  thronged  with  rickshaws,  carriages, 
bicycles,  motors,  street-cars,  and  Asiatics  of  every 
religion  and  complexion,  and  you  will  come  at  length 
into  a  portion  of  the  city  as  different  from  the  mercan- 
tile district  as  Riverside  Drive  is  from  the  Bowery. 
Here  you  will  find  broad  boulevards,  shaded  by  rows 
of  splendid  tamarinds,  lined  by  charming  villas  which 
peep  coyly  from  the  blazing  gardens  which  surround 
them,  and  broken  at  frequent  intervals  by  little  parks 
in  which  are  fountains  and  statuary.  There  is  a  great 
common,  green  with  grass  during  the  rainy  season, 
known  as  the  Premane  Ground,  where  military  reviews 
are  held  and  where  the  royal  cremations  take  place; 
a  favorite  spot  in  the  spring  for  the  kite-flying  con- 
tests in  which  Siamese  of  all  classes  and  all  ages  par- 
ticipate. Fronting  on  the  Premane  Ground  are  the  not 
unimposing  stuccoed  buildings  which  house  the  Min- 
istries of  Justice,  Agriculture  and  War.  Not  far  away 
is  the  new  Throne  Hall,  a  huge,  ornate  structure  of 
white  marble,  in  the  modern  Italian  style,  its  great 
dome  faintly  reminiscent  of  the  Capitol  at  Washington. 
From  the  center  of  the  spacious  plaza  rises  a  rather 
fine  equestrian  statue  of  the  late  king,  Chulalungkorn, 
and,  close  by,  the  really  charming  Dusit  Gardens,  beau- 
tifully laid  out  with  walks  and  lagoons  and  kiosks  and 
a  great  variety  of  tropical  flowers  and  shrubs  and 


222  STRANGE  TRAILS 

trees.  But,  most  characteristic  and  colorful  of  all,  a 
touch  of  that  Oriental  splendor  which  one  looks  for  in 
Siam,  is  the  congeries  of  palaces,  offices,  stables,  court- 
yards, gardens,  shrines  and  temples,  the  whole  en- 
circled by  a  crenelated,  white-washed  wall,  which  is  the 
official  residence  of  King  Rama  VI. 

There  are  said  to  be  nearly  four  hundred  Buddhist 
temples  within  a  two-mile  radius  of  the  royal  palace, 
of  which  by  far  the  most  interesting  and  magnificent  is 
the  famous  Wat  Phra  Keo,  or  Temple  of  the  Emerald 
Buddha,  which  is  really  a  royal  chapel,  being  within  the 
outer  circumference  of  the  palace  walls.  I  doubt  if 
any  space  of  similar  size  in  all  the  world  contains  such 
a  bewildering  display  of  barbaric  magnificence,  such 
a  riot  of  form  and  color,  as  the  walled  enclosure  in 
which  this  remarkable  edifice  and  its  attendant 
structures  stand.  From  the  center  of  the  marble- 
paved  courtyard  rises  an  enormous,  cone-shaped 
prachadee,  round  at  the  bottom  but  tapering  to  a 
long  and  slender  spire  said  to  be  covered  with  plates 
of  gold.  It  certainly  looks  like  a  solid  mass  of  that 
precious  metal,  and  at  daybreak  and  nightfall,  when  it 
catches  the  level  rays  of  the  sun,  it  can  be  seen  from 
afar,  shining  and  glittering  above  the  gorgeously 
colored  roofs  of  the  temples  and  the  many-tinted 
lesser  spires  which  surround  it.  Close  by  the  gilded 
prachadee  is  the  bote  or  chapel  used  by  the  king,  sur- 
mounted by  a  similar  spire  which  is  overlaid  with  sap- 
phire-colored plates  of  glass  and  porcelain,  while  a 
little  distance  away  stands  the  temple  itself,  its  gilded 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE.  223 

walls  set  with  mosaics  of  emerald  green.  Flanking 
the  gateways  of  the  temple  courtyard  are  gigantic, 
grotesque  figures,  fully  thirty  feet  in  height,  carved 
and  colored  like  the  creatures  of  a  nightmare.  They 
represent  demons  and  are  supposed  to  guard  the  ap- 
proaches to  the  temple,  being  so  placed  that  they  glare 
down  ferociously  on  all  who  enter  the  sacred  enclosure. 
Other  figures  in  marble,  bronze,  wood  and  stone,  rep- 
resenting dolphins,  storks,  cows,  camels,  monkeys  and 
the  various  fabulous  monsters  of  the  Hindu  mythol- 
ogy, are  scattered  in  apparent  confusion  about  the 
temple  courtyard,  producing  an  effect  as  bizarre  as  it 
is  bewildering.  It  is  so  unreal,  so  incredibly  fantas- 
tic, that  I  felt  that  I  was  looking  at  the  papier-mache 
setting  for  a  motion  picture  spectacle,  such  as  Griffith 
used  to  produce,  and  that  the  director  and  the  camera- 
man would  appear  shortly  and  end  the  illusion. 

The  interior  of  the  main  temple  is  extremely  lofty. 
The  walls  and  rafters  are  of  teak  and  the  floor  is 
covered  with  a  matting  made  of  silver  wire.  At  the 
far  end  of  this  imposing  room  an  enormous,  pyram- 
idal shrine  of  gold  rises  almost  to  the  roof,  its 
dazzling  brilliancy  somewhat  subdued  by  the  semi- 
obscurity  of  the  interior.  Wat  Phra  Keo  is  unique 
amongst  Siamese  temples  in  containing  objects  of  real 
value.  Everything  is  genuine  and  costly,  as  becomes 
the  gifts  of  a  king,  though  it  must  be  admitted  that 
certain  of  the  royal  offerings  which  are  ranged  at  the 
foot  of  the  shrine,  such  as  jeweled  French  clocks,  figu- 
rines of  Sevres  and  Dresden  porcelain,  and  a  large 


224  STRANGE  TRAILS 

marble  statue  of  a  Roman  goddess,  are  of  doubtful 
appropriateness.  Ranged  on  a  table  at  the  back  of 
the  altar  are  seven  images  of  Buddha  in  pure  gold,  the 
right  hand  of  each  pointed  upward.  On  the  thumb 
and  fingers  of  each  hand  glitters  a  king's  ransom  in 
rings  of  sapphires,  emeralds  and  rubies,  while  from  the 
center  of  each  palm  flashes  a  rosette  of  diamonds. 
High  up  toward  the  rafters,  at  the  apex  of  the  golden 
pyramid,  in  a  sort  of  recess  toward  which  the  fingers 
of  the  seven  images  are  pointing,  sits  an  image  of 
Buddha,  perhaps  twelve  inches  high,  said  to  be  cut 
from  one  enormous  emerald — whence  the  temple's 
name.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  made  of  jade  and  is  of 
incalculable  value.  Set  in  its  forehead  are  three  eyes, 
each  an  enormous  diamond.  The  history  of  this  extra- 
ordinary idol  is  lost  in  the  mists  of  antiquity.  Tradi- 
tion has  it  that  it  fell  from  heaven  into  one  of  the 
Laos  states,  being  captured  by  the  Siamese  in  battle. 
Since  then  it  has  been  repeatedly  lost,  captured  or 
stolen.  Its  story,  like  that  of  so  many  famous  jewels, 
might  fittingly  be  written  in  blood. 

It  is  the  custom  in  Siam  for  every  man  to  spend  a 
portion  of  his  life  in  a  monastery.  This  rule  applies 
to  everyone  from  the  poorest  peasant  upward,  the 
king  and  all  the  male  members  of  the  royal  family  hav- 
ing at  some  period  worn  the  yellow  robe  of  a  monk. 
This  curious  custom  is,  no  doubt,  an  imitation  of  the 
so-called  Act  of  Renunciation  of  Gautama,  the  future 
Buddha,  who,  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine,  moved  by  the 
sufferings  of  humanity,  renounced  his  rights  to  his 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  225 

father's  throne  and,  abandoning  his  wife  and  child, 
devoted  the  remainder  of  his  life  to  religion.  Just  as 
every  American  boy  is  expected  to  go  to  school,  so 
every  Siamese  youth  is  expected  to  enter  a  monas- 
tery, the  stern  discipline  enforced  during  this  period 
accounting,  I  have  no  doubt,  for  the  docility  which 
is  so  noticeable  a  part  of  the  Siamese  character. 
While  I  was  in  Siam  I  was  the  guest  one  day  of  the 
officers'  mess  of  the  crack  regiment  of  the  household 
cavalry.  Though  my  hosts,  with  few  exceptions,  spoke 
fluent  English,  though  several  of  them  had  been  edu- 
cated at  English  schools  and  universities,  and  though 
the  conversation  over  the  mess  table  was  of  polo  and 
racing  and  big  game  shooting  and  bridge,  I  learned 
to  my  astonishment  that  every  one  of  these  debonair 
young  officers,  with  their  worldly  manners  and  their 
beautifully  cut  uniforms,  had  at  one  time  shaved  his 
head,  donned  the  yellow  robe  of  a  monk,  and  begged 
his  food  from  door  to  door.  In  view  of  the  univer- 
sality of  the  custom,  it  is  small  wonder  that  Siam  has 
ten  thousand  monasteries  and  that  300,000  of  its  in- 
habitants wear  the  ocher-colored  robe. 

The  periods  of  time  which  men  devote  to  monastic 
life  are  not  uniform.  Some  spend  between  a  month 
and  a  year,  others  their  entire  lives.  Some  enter  the 
monastery  in  their  youth,  others  in  middle  age  or  when 
old  men.  But  they  all  shave  their  heads  and  don  the 
coarse  yellow  robe  and  lead  practically  the  same  ex- 
istence. Each  morning,  carrying  their  "begging 
bowls,"  they  beg  their  food  at  the  doors  of  lay- 


226  STRANGE  TRAILS 

men.  They  come  quietly  and  stand  at  the  door,  and, 
accepting  the  offerings,  as  quietly  depart  without  ex- 
pressing thanks  for  what  is  given  them,  the  idea  being 
that  they  are  not  begging  for  their  own  benefit  but  in 
order  to  evoke  a  spirit  of  charity  in  the  giver.  During 
the  dry  season  it  is  the  custom  of  the  monks  to  make 
long  pilgrimages  for  the  purpose  of  visiting  other  mon- 
asteries. Each  of  these  itinerant  monks  is  accompa- 
nied by  a  youth  known  as  a  yom,  who  carries  the  simple 
requisites  of  the  journey,  the  chief  of  which  is  a  large 
umbrella.  Traveling  in  the  interior  one  frequently 
meets  long  files  of  these  yellow-clad  pilgrims,  with 
their  attendant  yoms,  moving  in  silence  along  a  forest 
trail.  When  night  comes  the  yom  opens  the  large 
umbrella  which  he  carries,  thrusts  its  long  handle  into 
the  ground,  and  over  it  drapes  a  square  of  cloth,  thus 
extemporizing  a  sort  of  tent  under  which  his  master 
sleeps. 

To  visit  Siam  without  seeing  the  royal  white  ele- 
phants would  be  like  visiting  Niagara  without  seeing 
the  falls.  The  elephant  stables  stand  in  the  heart  of 
the  palace  enclosure,  sandwiched  in  between  the  palace 
gardens  and  the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs.  Each 
animal — there  were  only  three  in  the  royal  stables  at 
the  time  of  my  visit — has  a  separate  building  to  itself, 
within  which  it  stands  on  a  sort  of  dais,  one  hind  leg 
lashed  with  a  rope  to  a  tall,  stout  post  painted  scarlet 
and  surmounted  by  a  gilded  crown.  Much  as  I  dis- 
Jike  to  shatter  cherished  illusions,  were  I  to  assert  that 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  227 

the  elephants  I  saw  in  the  royal  stables  were  white,  I 
should  be  convicting  myself  of  color-blindness.  The 
best  that  can  be  said  of  two  of  them,  is  that  they  were 
a  dirty  gray,  about  the  color  of  a  much-used  wash-rag. 
The  third,  had  it  been  a  horse,  might  have  been  de- 
scribed as  a  roan,  the  whole  body  being  a  pale  reddish- 
brown,  with  a  sprinkling  of  real  white  hairs  on  the 
back.  All  three  animals  were,  in  reality,  albinos,  hav- 
ing the  light-colored  iris  of  the  eye,  the  white  toe-nails, 
and  the  pink  skin  at  the  end  of  the  trunk  which  distin- 
guish the  albino  everywhere.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
"white  elephant"  is  not  a  correct  translation  of  the 
Siamese  chang  penak,  which  really  means  "albino  ele- 
phant." But  most  foreigners  will  continue,  I  have  no 
doubt,  to  use  the  term  made  famous  by  Barnum. 

Though  the  albino  elephants  are  never  used  now- 
adays save  on  occasions  of  great  ceremony,  being 
regarded  by  the  educated  Siamese  with  the  same 
amused  tolerance  with  which  an  Englishman  regards 
the  great  gilt  coach,  drawn  by  eight  cream-colored 
horses,  in  which  the  king  goes  to  open  Parliament,  the 
ordinary  elephant  is  of  enormous  economic  value  to 
the  country,  being  a  combination,  as  it  were,  of  a  motor 
truck,  a  portable  derrick,  and  a  freight  car.  Almost 
anywhere  in  the  back  country,  where  the  only  roads 
are  trails  through  the  jungle,  one  can  see  "elephants 
a-pilin'  teak  in  the  sludgy,  squdgy  creeks"  or  being 
loaded  with  merchandise  for  transport  into  the  far 
interior.  Indeed,  the  traveler  who  wishes  to  take  a 


228  STRANGE  TRAILS 

short  cut  from  Siam  to  Burmah  can  hire  an  elephant 
for  the  journey  almost  as  easily  as  he  could  hire  a 
motor  car  in  America.  It  is  a  novel  means  of  travel, 
but  a  little  of  it  goes  a  long  way.  A  good  working 
elephant  is  a  valuable  piece  of  property,  being  worth 
in  the  neighborhood  of  $2,500.,  but  the  prospective 
purchaser  should  remember  that  the  possession  of  one 
of  these  giant  pachyderms  entails  considerable  over- 
head, or  rather,  internal  expense.  De  Wolf  Hopper 
was  telling  only  the  literal  truth  when  he  sang  in 
Wang  of  the  tribulations  of  the  peasant  who  had  an 
elephant  on  his  hands : 

"The  elephant  ate  all  night, 
The  elephant  ate  all  day; 
Do  what  he  would  to  furnish  food, 
The  cry  was  'Still  more  hay!'  " 

Although,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  sophisticated 
Siamese  regard  the  white  elephant  with  amusement 
tinged  with  contempt,  there  is  no  doubt  that  among  the 
bulk  of  the  people  the  animals  are  considered  as  sac- 
red and  are  treated  with  great  veneration.  Indeed, 
when  Siam  was  forced  to  cede  certain  of  her  eastern 
provinces  to  France,  the  treaty  contained  a  clause  pro- 
viding that  any  so-called  white  elephants  which  might 
be  captured  in  the  ceded  territory  should  be  considered 
the  property  of  the  King  of  Siam  and  delivered  to  him 
forthwith.  A  number  of  years  ago,  a  traveling  show 
known  as  Wilson's  English  Circus,  gave  a  number  of 
exhibitions  in  Bangkok,  which  were  attended  by  the 
King,  the  nobility,  and  members  of  the  European 


A  large  herd  of  wild  elephants  being  driven  across  a  river 


The  elephants,  herded  by  domesticated  animals,  are  driven  into  the  corral 
An  elephant  hunt  in  Siam 


colony.  When  the  proprietor  saw  that  the  popular 
interest  in  his  exhibition  was  beginning  to  wear  off,  he 
distributed  broadcast  handbills  announcing  that  at  the 
next  performance  "a  genuine  white  elephant"  would 
take  part  in  the  exhibition.  Public  curiosity  was  re- 
awakened and  that  evening  the  circus  was  crowded. 
After  the  usual  bareback  riding,  in  which  the  Siamese 
were  treated  to  the  sight  of  European  women  in  pink 
tights  and  tulle  skirts  pirouetting  on  the  backs  of 
cantering  Percherons,  two  clowns  burst  into  the  ring. 

"Hey,  you!"  bawled  one  of  them,  "Have  you  seen 
the  white  elephant?" 

"Sure,  I  have,"  was  the  response.  "The  King  has 
a  stable  full  of  them." 

"Oh,  no,  he  ain't,"  shouted  the  first  fun-maker. 
"The  King  ain't  got  any  white  elephants.  His  are  all 
gray  ones.  I'll  show  you  the  only  genuine  white 
elephant  in  the  world,"  whereupon  a  small  ele- 
phant, as  snowy  as  repeated  coats  of  whitewash  could 
make  it,  ambled  into  the  ring.  Though  a  suppressed 
titter  ran  through  the  more  sophisticated  portion  of 
the  audience  when  it  was  observed  that  the  ridiculous 
looking  animal  left  white  marks  on  everything  it 
touched,  it  was  quite  apparent  that  the  bulk  of  the 
spectators  resented  fun  being  made  of  an  animal 
which  they  had  been  taught  to  consider  sacred,  certain 
of  the  more  devout  asserting  that  the  sacrilegious  per- 
formance would  call  down  the  wrath  of  Buddha. 
Their  prophecies  proved  to  be  well  founded,  for  the 
"white"  elephant  died  at  sea  a  few  days  later — as  the 


230  STRANGE  TRAILS 

result,  it  was  hinted,  of  poison  put  in  its  food  by  the 
Siamese  priests — and  Wilson  himself,  who  had  been 
suffering  from  dysentery,  died  the  day  after  he  landed 
at  Singapore. 

Being  a  young  nation,  so  far  as  the  adoption  of 
Western  methods  are  concerned,  the  Siamese  are  ex- 
tremely sensitive,  being  almost  pathetically  eager  to 
win  the  good  opinion  of  the  Occidental  world.  Thus, 
upon  Siam's  entry  into  the  Great  War  (perhaps  you 
were  not  aware  that  the  little  kingdom  equipped  and 
sent  to  France  an  expeditionary  force  composed  of 
aviation,  ambulance  and  motor  units,  thus  being  the 
only  independent  Asiatic  nation  whose  troops  served 
on  European  soil)  the  king  abolished  the  white  ele- 
phant upon  a  red  ground  which  from  time  immemorial 
had  been  the  national  standard,  substituting  for  it  a 
nondescript  affair  of  colored  stripes  which  at  first 
glance  appears  to  be  a  compromise  between  the  flags 
of  China  and  Montenegro.  In  doing  this,  I  think  that 
the  king  made  a  mistake,  for  he  deprived  his  country 
of  a  distinctive  emblem  which  was  associated  with 
Siam  the  whole  world  over. 

Fortune  was  kind  to  us  in  the  Siamese  capital,  for 
we  reached  that  city  on  the  eve  of  a  series  of  royal 
cremations,  the  attendant  ceremonies  providing  enough 
action  and  color  to  satisfy  even  Hawkinson.  It 
should  be  explained  that  instead  of  cremating  a  body 
immediately,  as  might  be  expected  in  so  torrid  a  cli- 
mate, the  remains  are  placed  in  a  large  jar  and  kept 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  231 

in  a  temple  or  in  the  house  of  the  deceased  for  a  period 
determined  by  the  rank  of  the  dead  man — the  King 
for  twelve  months  and  so  downward.  If  the  relatives 
are  too  poor  to  afford  the  expenses  incident  to  crema- 
tion, they  bury  the  body,  but  exhume  it  for  burning 
when  their  financial  condition  permits.  On  the  day 
of  the  cremation,  which  is  usually  fixed  by  an  astrolo- 
ger, the  remains  are  transferred  from  the  jar  to  a 
wooden  coffin  and  carried  with  much  pomp  to  the 
meru,  or  place  of  cremation.  When  the  deceased  is 
of  royal  or  noble  blood  the  meru  is  frequently  a  mag- 
nificent structure,  sometimes  costing  many  thousands 
of  dollars,  built  for  the  purpose  and  torn  down  when 
that  purpose  has  been  served.  The  coffin  is  placed 
on  the  pyre,  which  is  lighted  by  relatives,  the  occa- 
sion being  considered  one  for  rejoicing  rather  than 
mourning.  The  royal  meru,  which  had  been  erected 
in  a  small  park  in  the  outskirts  of  the  capital  at  a 
cost  of  one  hundred  thousand  ticals,  was  a  really  beau- 
tiful structure  of  true  Siamese  architecture,  elab- 
orately decorated  in  scarlet  and  gold  and  draped 
with  hangings  of  the  same  colors.  Within  the 
meru  were  three  pyres,  concealed  by  gilt  screens,  on 
which  were  set  the  coffins  containing  the  bodies.  As 
there  were  a  number  of  bodies  to  be  burned,  the  cere- 
monies lasted  upward  of  a  week,  King  Rama  going  in 
state  each  afternoon  to  the  meru,  where  he  took  his 
place  on  a  throne  in  an  elaborately  decorated  pavilion. 
After  brief  ceremonies  by  a  large  body  of  yellow- 
robed  Buddhist  priests,  the  King  set  fire  to  the  end  of 


232  STRANGE  TRAILS 

a  long  fuse,  which  in  turn  ignited  the  three  pyres 
simultaneously,  the  ascending  clouds  of  smoke  being 
greeted  by  the  roll  of  drums  and  the  crash  of  saluting 
cannon. 

When  I  first  suggested  to  friends  in  Bangkok  that  I 
wished  to  obtain  permission  for  Hawkinson  to  take 
pictures  of  the  cremation,  they  told  me  that  it  was 
out  of  the  question. 

"But  why?"  I  demanded.  "Motion-pictures  were 
taken  of  the  funerals  of  the  Pope,  and  of  King  Ed- 
ward, and  of  President  Roosevelt,  without  anyone 
dreaming  of  protesting,  so  why  should  there  be  any 
objection  here?  Nothing  in  the  least  disrespectful  is 
intended." 

"But  this  is  Siam,"  my  friends  replied  pessimisti- 
cally, "and  such  things  simply  aren't  done  here.  No 
one  has  ever  taken  a  motion-picture  of  a  royal 
cremation." 

"It's  never  too  late  to  begin,"  I  told  them. 

So  I  took  a  rickshaw  out  to  the  American  Legation 
and  enlisted  the  cooperation  of  our  charge  d'affaires, 
Mr.  Donald  Rodgers,  the  very  efficient  young  diplo- 
matist who  was  representing  American  interests  in 
Siam  pending  the  arrival  of  the  new  minister. 

"I'll  do  my  best  to  arrange  it,"  Rodgers  assured  me, 
"but  I'm  not  sanguine  about  meeting  with  success. 
The  Siamese  are  fine  people,  kindly,  hospitable  and  all 
that,  but  they're  as  conservative  as  Bostonians." 

Two  days  later,  however,  he  sent  me  a  letter,  signed 
by  the  minister  of  the  royal  household,  authorizing 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  233 

Hawkinson  to  take  motion-pictures  in  the  grounds  of 
the  meru  on  the  following  day  prior  to  the  cremation. 
I  didn't  quite  like  the  sound  of  the  last  four  words, 
"prior  to  the  cremation,"  but  I  felt  that  it  was  not  an 
occasion  for  quibbling.  So  the  next  day,  at  the  ap- 
pointed hour — which  was  two  hours  ahead  of  the  time 
set  for  the  cremation — Hawkinson  set  out  for  the 
meru,  accompanied  by  his  interpreter.  He  did  not 
return  until  dinner-time. 

"What  happened?"  I  inquired,  by  way  of  greeting. 

"What  didn't  happen?"  he  retorted.  "They  turned 
me  out  just  as  the  cremation  was  commencing.  When 
we  reached  the  meru  I  was  met  by  an  official  wearing 
bright-blue  pants,  who  told  me  that  he  had  been  sent 
to  assist  me  in  taking  the  pictures.  Well,  I  got  a  few 
shots  of  the  meru  itself,  and  of  the  royal  pavilion,  and 
of  some  of  the  priests  and  soldiers,  but  there  wasn't 
much  doing  because  there  wasn't  any  action.  So  I  sat 
down  to  wait  for  things  to  happen.  Pretty  soon  the 
troops  began  to  arrive — lancers  and  a  battery  of  artil- 
lery and  a  company  of  the  royal  body-guard  in  red 
coats — and  after  them  came  the  guests:  officials  and 
dignitaries  in  all  sorts  of  gorgeous  uniforms  covered 
with  decorations.  A  few  minutes  later  I  heard  some- 
one say,  'The  King  is  coming,'  so  I  got  the  camera 
ready  to  begin  cranking.  Just  then  up  comes  my 
Siamese  chaperone.  'You  will  have  to  leave  now,'  says 
he.  'Leave?  What  for?'  said  I.  'Because  the  cre- 
mation is  about  to  begin,'  he  tells  me.  'But  that's 
what  I've  come  to  take  pictures  of,'  I  told  him.  'What 


234  STRANGE  TRAILS 

did  you  think  that  I  attended  this  party  for?'  'Oh,  no,' 
says  he,  very  polite;  'your  permission  says  that  you 
can  take  pictures  prior  to  the  cremation.'  So  they 
showed  me  the  gate." 

"Then  you  didn't  get  any  pictures?"  I  queried,  deep 
disappointment  in  my  tone. 

"Sure,  I  got  the  pictures,"  was  the  answer.  "Some 
of  them,  at  any  rate.  That's  what  I  went  there  for, 
wasn't  it?" 

"But  how  did  you  work  it?"  I  demanded. 

"Easy,"  he  replied,  lighting  a  cigarette.  "I  told  the 
driver  to  back  his  car  up  against  the  iron  fence  which 
encircles  the  meru;  then  I  set  up  the  camera  in  the  ton- 
neau,  so  that  it  was  above  the  heads  of  the  crowd, 
screwed  on  the  six-inch  lens  which  I  use  for  long- 
distance shots,  and  took  the  pictures." 

The  present  ruler  of  Siam,  King  Rama  VI,  is  in 
most  respects  the  antithesis  of  the  popular  conception 
of  an  Oriental  monarch.  Though  polygamy  has  been 
practised  among  the  upper  classes  in  Siam  from  time 
beyond  reckoning,  he  has  neither  wife  nor  concu- 
bines. Instead  of  riding  atop  a  white  elephant,  in  a 
gilded  howdah,  or  being  borne  in  a  palanquin,  as  is 
always  the  custom  of  Oriental  rulers  in  fiction,  he  shat- 
ters the  speed  laws  in  a  big  red  Mercedes.  For  the 
flaming  silks  and  flashing  jewels  which  the  movies  have 
educated  the  American  public  to  believe  are  habitually 
worn  by  Eastern  potentates,  King  Rama  substitutes  the 
uniform  of  a  Siamese  general,  or,  for  evening  functions 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  235 

at  the  palace,  the  dress  coat  and  knee-breeches  of 
European  courts.  He  was  educated  at  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  and  later  graduated  from  the  Royal  Mili- 
tary College  at  Sandhurst,  being  commissioned  an 
honorary  colonel  in  the  British  Army.  He  is  the 
founder  and  chief  of  an  organization  patterned  after 
the  Boy  Scouts  and  known  as  the  Wild  Tigers,  which 
has  hundreds  of  branches  and  carries  on  its  rolls  the 
name  of  nearly  every  youth  in  the  kingdom.  Each 
year  the  organization  holds  in  Bangkok  a  grand  rally, 
when  thousands  of  youngsters,  together  with  many 
adults  from  all  walks  of  life,  for  membership  in  the 
corps  is  not  confined  to  boys,  are  reviewed  by  the 
sovereign,  who  appears  in  the  gorgeous  and  original 
uniform,  designed  by  himself,  of  commander-in-chief 
of  the  Wild  Tigers. 

In  one  respect,  however,  King  Rama  lives  up  to  the 
popular  conception  of  an  Oriental  ruler:  like  his  father 
before  him,  he  is  generous  to  the  point  of  prodigality. 
This  trait  was  illustrated  not  long  ago,  when  he  sent 
eight  thousand  pounds  to  the  widow  of  Mr.  Westen- 
gaard,  the  American  who  was  for  many  years  general 
adviser  to  the  Government  of  Siam,  accompanied  by  a 
message  that  it  was  to  be  used  for  the  education  of  her 
son.  This  recalls  a  characteristic  little  anecdote  of  the 
present  ruler's  father,  the  late  King  Chulalongkorn. 
The  early  youth  of  the  late  king  and  his  brothers  was 
spent  under  the  tutelage  of  an  English  governess,  who 
was  affectionately  addressed  by  the  younger  members 
of  the  royal  family  as  "Mem."  Upon  her  return  to 


236  STRANGE  TRAILS 

England  she  wrote  a  book  entitled  An  Englishwoman 
at  the  Siamese  Court,  in  which  she  depicted  her  em- 
ployer, King  Mongkut,  the  father  of  Chulalongkorn, 
in  a  none  too  favorable  light.  Some  years  later,  upon 
the  occasion  of  King  Chulalongkorn's  visit  to  England, 
his  former  governess,  now  become  an  old  woman, 
called  upon  him. 

"Mem,"  he  said,  in  a  course  of  conversation,  "how 
could  you  write  such  unkind  things  about  my  father? 
He  was  always  very  good  to  you." 

"That  is  true,  Majesty,"  the  former  governess  ad- 
mitted in  some  confusion,  "but  the  publishers  wouldn't 
take  the  book  unless  I  made  it  sensational.  And  I  had 
to  do  it  because  I  was  in  financial  difficulties." 

When  she  had  departed  the  King  turned  to  one  of 
his  equerries.  "Send  the  poor  old  lady  a  hundred 
pounds,"  he  directed.  "She  meant  no  harm  and  she 
needs  the  money." 

The  chief  hobby  of  the  present  ruler  is,  curiously 
enough,  amateur  dramatics,  of  which  his  orthodox  and 
conservative  ministers  do  not  wholly  approve.  In  ad- 
dition to  having  translated  into  Siamese  a  number  of 
Shakesperian  plays,  he  is  the  author  of  several  orig- 
inal dramas,  which  have  been  produced  at  the  palace 
under  his  personal  direction  and  in  several  of  which 
he  has  himself  played  the  leading  parts.  As  a  result 
of  this  predilection  for  dramatics,  he  has  accumulated 
an  extensive  theatrical  wardrobe,  to  which  he  is  con- 
stantly adding.  When  I  was  in  Bangkok  I  had  some 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  237 

clothes  made  by  the  English  tailor  who  supplies  the 
court — an  excellent  tailor,  but  expensive. 

"You'll  excuse  my  taking  the  liberty,  I  hope,  sir," 
he  said  during  the  course  of  a  fitting,  "but,  being  as 
you  are  an  American,  perhaps  you  could  assist  me  with 
some  information.  I've  received  a  very  pressing 
order  for  a  costume  such  as  is  worn  by  the  cowboys 
in  your  country,  sir,  but,  though  I've  found  some  pic- 
tures in  the  English  illustrated  weeklies,  I  don't  rightly 
know  how  to  make  it. 

"A  cowboy's  costume?"  I  exclaimed.  "In  Siam? 
Who  in  the  name  of  Heaven  wants  it?" 

"It's  for  his  Majesty,"  was  the  surprising  answer. 
"He's  written  a  play  in  which  he  takes  the  part  of  an 
American  cowboy  and  he's  very  particular,  sir,  that 
the  costume  should  be  quite  correct.  Seeing  as  you 
come  from  that  country,  I  thought  I'd  make  so  bold, 
sir,  as  to  ask  if  you  could  give  me  some  suggestions." 

It  was  quite  apparent  that  he  believed  that  when  I 
was  at  home  I  customarily  went  about  in  chaps,  a 
flannel  shirt  and  a  sombrero,  and,  knowing  the  English 
mind,  I  realized  that  nothing  was  to  be  gained  by  at- 
tempting to  disillusionize  him. 

"Let's  see  what  you've  made,"  I  suggested,  where- 
upon he  produced  an  outfit  which  appeared  to  be  a 
compromise  between  the  costume  of  an  Italian  bandit, 
the  uniform  of  an  Australian  soldier,  and  the  regalia 
of  a  Spanish  bull-fighter.  Suppressing  my  inclination 
to  give  way  to  laughter,  I  sketched  for  the  grateful 
tailor  the  sort  of  garments  to  which  cowpunchers — 


238  STRANGE  TRAILS 

cowpunchers  of  the  screen,  at  least — are  addicted.  If 
he  followed  my  directions  the  King  of  Siam  wore  a 
costume  which  would  make  William  S.  Hart  green 
with  envy. 

King  Rama's  literary  efforts  have  not  been  confined 
to  playwriting,  however,  for  his  book  on  the  wars  of 
the  Polish  Succession  is  one  of  the  standard  authorities 
on  the  subject.  If  you  go  to  Siam  expecting  to  see  an 
Oriental  potentate  such  as  you  have  read  about  in 
novels,  His  Majesty,  Rama  VI,  is  bound  to  prove 
very  disappointing. 

But,  though  the  monarch  and  his  court  are  as  up-to- 
the-minute  as  the  Twentieth  Century  Limited,  many 
of  the  spectacular  and  colorful  ceremonies  of  old  Siam 
are  still  celebrated  with  all  their  ancient  pomp  and 
magnificence.  For  example,  each  year,  at  the  close 
of  the  rainy  season,  the  King  devotes  about  a  fort- 
night to  visiting  the  various  temples  in  and  near  Bang- 
kok. On  these  occasions  he  goes  in  the  royal  barge, 
a  gorgeously  decorated  affair,  150  feet  in  length,  look- 
ing not  unlike  an  enormous  Venetian  gondola,  rowed 
by  three-score  oarsmen  in  scarlet-and-gold  liveries. 
The  King,  surrounded  by  a  glittering  group  of  court 
officials,  sits  on  a  throne  at  the  stern,  while  attendants 
hold  over  his  head  golden  umbrellas.  From  the  land- 
ing place  to  the  temple  he  is  borne  in  a  sedan  chair 
between  rows  of  prostrate  natives  who  bow  their  fore- 
heads to  the  earth  in  adoration  of  this  short,  stout, 
olive-skinned,  good-humored  looking  young  man  whom 


Once  each  year  the  King  visits  the  various  temples  in  and  near  Bangkok,  travelling  in  the  royal 
barge,  a  gorgeously  decorated  affair  rowed  by  threescore  oarsmen 


The  rice-planting  ceremony.    The  Minister  of  Agriculture  ploughs  a  few  furrows  in  a  field  outside 

Bangkok,  being  fallowed  by  four  young  women  of  the  court  who  scatter  rice 

grains  on  the  freshly  opened  soil 

Colorful  ceremonies  of  old  Siam 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  239 

nearly  ten  millions  of  people  implicitly  believe  to  be 
the  earthly  representative  of  Buddha. 

Another  picturesque  observance,  the  Rice-Planting 
Ceremony,  takes  place  early  in  May,  when  the  Minis- 
ter of  Agriculture,  as  the  deputy  of  the  King,  leads  a 
long  procession  of  officials  and  priests  to  a  field  in  the 
outskirts  of  the  capital,  where  a  pair  of  white  bullocks, 
yoked  to  a  gilded  plough,  are  waiting.  Surrounded 
by  a  throng  of  functionaries  glittering  like  Christmas 
trees,  the  Minister  ploughs  a  few  furrows  in  the  field, 
being  followed  by  four  young  women  of  the  court  who 
scatter  rice  grains  on  the  freshly  turned  soil.  Until 
quite  recent  years,  the  officials  taking  part  in  this  pro- 
cession claimed  the  privilege  of  appropriating  any 
articles  which  caught  their  fancy  in  the  shops  along 
the  route.  But  this  quaint  practise  is  no  longer  fol- 
lowed. It  was  not  popular  with  the  merchants.  The 
Siamese,  like  all  Orientals,  place  much  reliance  on 
omens,  the  position  of  the  lower  hem  of  the  panung 
worn  by  the  Minister  of  Agriculture  on  this  occasion 
indicating,  it  is  confidently  believed,  the  sort  of 
weather  to  be  expected  during  the  ensuing. year.  If 
the  edge  of  the  panung  comes  down  to  the  ankles  a  dry 
season  is  anticipated,  even  a  drought,  perhaps.  If,  on 
the  contrary,  the  garment  is  pulled  up  to  the  knees — a 
raining-in-London  effect,  as  it  were, — it  is  freely  pre- 
dicted that  the  country  will  suffer  from  floods.  But  if 
the  folds  of  the  silk  reach  to  a  point  midway  between 
knee  and  ankle,  then  the  farmers  look  forward  to  a 


24o  STRANGE  TRAILS 

moderate  rainfall  and  a  prosperous  season.  It  is  as 
though  the  United  States  Weather  Bureau  were  to 
base  its  forecasts  on  the  height  at  which  the  Secretary 
of  Agriculture  wore  his  trousers. 

The  panung — a  strip  of  silk  or  cotton  about  three 
yards  long — is  the  national  garment  of  Siam  and 
among  the  poorer  classes  constitutes  the  only  article  of 
clothing.  It  is  admirably  adapted  to  the  climate,  being 
easy  to  wash  and  easy  to  put  on :  all  that  is  necessary 
is  to  wind  it  about  the  waist,  pass  the  ends  between  the 
legs,  and  tuck  them  into  the  girdle,  thus  producing  the 
effect  of  a  pair  of  knickerbockers.  As  both  sexes  wear 
the  panung,  and  likewise  wear  their  hair  cut  short,  it  is 
somewhat  difficult  to  distinguish  between  men  and 
women.  Siamese  women  keep  their  hair  about  four 
or  five  inches  long  and  brush  it  straight  back,  like 
American  college  students,  without  using  any  comb  or 
other  ornament,  thus  giving  them  a  peculiarly  boyish 
appearance.  In  explanation  of  this  fashion  of  wear- 
ing the  hair  there  is  an  interesting  tradition.  Once 
upon  a  time,  it  seems,  a  Siamese  walled  city  was 
besieged  by  Cambodians  while  the  men  of  the  city 
were  fighting  elsewhere  and  only  women  and  children 
remained  behind.  A  successful  defense  was  out  of  the 
question.  In  this  emergency,  a  woman  of  militant 
character — the  Sylvia  Pankhurst  of  her  time — pro- 
posed to  her  terrified  sisters  that  they  should  cut 
their  hair  short  and  appear  upon  the  walls  in  men's 
clothing  on  the  chance  of  frightening  away  the  Cam- 
bodians. The  ruse  succeeded,  for,  while  the  invaders 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  241 

were  hesitating  whether  to  carry  the  city  by  storm,  the 
Siamese  warriors  returned  and  put  the  enemy  to  flight. 
The  Siamese  prince  who  told  me  the  story,  an  officer 
who  had  spent  much  of  his  life  in  Europe,  remarked 
that  he  understood  that  American  women  were  also 
cutting  off  their  hair. 

"True  enough,"  I  admitted.  "In  the  younger  set 
bobbed  hair  is  all  the  vogue.  But  they  don't  cut  off 
their  hair,  as  your  women  did,  to  frighten  away  the 


men." 


If  you  will  take  down  the  family  atlas  and  turn  to 
the  map  of  Southern  Asia  you  will  see  that  Siam,  with 
an  area  about  equivalent  to  that  of  Spain,  occupies  the 
uncomfortable  and  precarious  position  of  a  fat  wal- 
nut clinched  firmly  between  the  jaws  of  a  nut-cracker, 
the  jaws  being  formed  by  British  Burmah  and  French 
Indo-China.  And  for  the  past  thirty  years  those  jaws 
have  been  slowly  but  remorselessly  closing.  Until 
1893  the  eastern  frontier  of  Siam  was  separated  from 
the  China  Sea  by  the  narrow  strip  of  Annam,  at  one 
point  barely  thirty  miles  in  width,  which  was  under 
French  protection.  Its  western  boundary  was  the  Lu 
Kiang  River,  which  likewise  formed  the  eastern  boun- 
dary of  the  British  possessions  in  Burmah.  On  the 
south  the  kingdom  reached  down  to  the  Grand  Lac  of 
Cambodia,  while  on  the  north  its  frontiers  were  coter- 
minous with  those  of  the  great,  rich  Chinese  province 
of  Yunnan.  Now  here  was  a  condition  of  affairs 
which  was  as  annoying  as  it  was  intolerable  to  the 


242  STRANGE  TRAILS 

land-hungry  statesmen  of  Downing  Street  and  the 
Quai  d'Orsay.  That  a  small  and  defenseless  Orien- 
tal nation  should  be  permitted  to  block  the  colonial 
expansion  of  two  powerful  and  acquisitive  European 
nations  was  unthinkable. 

The  first  step  in  the  spoilation  of  the  helpless  little 
kingdom  was  taken  by  France  in  1893,  when,  claiming 
that  the  Mekong — which  the  French  were  eager  to 
acquire  under  the  impression  that  it  would  provide 
them  with  a  trade-route  into  Southern  China — formed 
the  true  boundary  between  Siam  and  Annam,  she  de- 
manded that  the  Siamese  evacuate  the  great  strip  of 
territory  to  the  east  of  that  river.  Greatly  to  the 
delight  of  the  French  imperialists,  the  Siamese  refused 
to  yield,  whereupon,  in  accordance  with  the  time- 
honored  rules  of  the  game  of  territory  grabbing, 
French  gunboats  were  dispatched  to  make  a  naval 
demonstration  off  Bangkok.  The  forts  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Menam  fired  upon  the  gunboats,  whereupon  the 
French  instituted  a  blockade  of  the  Siamese  capital 
and  at  the  same  time  enormously  increased  their  de- 
mands. England,  which  had  long  professed  to  be  a 
disinterested  friend  of  the  Siamese,  shrugged  her 
shoulders  whereupon  they  yielded  to  the  threat  of  a 
French  invasion  and  ceded  to  France  the  eastern 
marches  of  the  kingdom.  Meanwhile  the  frontier  be- 
tween Siam  and  the  new  British  possessions  in  Bur- 
mah  had  been  settled  amicably,  though,  as  might  have 
been  expected,  in  Britain's  favor,  Siam  being  shorn  of 
a  small  strip  of  territory  on  the  northwest.  In  1904 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  243 

the  French  again  brought  pressure  to  bear,  their  ter- 
ritorial booty  on  this  occasion  amounting  to  some  eight 
thousand  square  miles,  comprising  the  Luang  Prabang 
district  lying  east  of  the  Mekong  and  the  provinces 
of  Malupre  and  Barsak.  Seeing  that  the  process  of 
filching  territory  from  the  Siamese  was  as  safe  and 
easy  as  taking  candy  from  children,  the  French  tried 
it  again  in  1907,  this  time  obtaining  the  provinces  of 
Battambang,  Sisophon  and  Siem-Reap,  constituting  a 
total  of  some  seven  thousand  square  miles,  thus  bring- 
ing within  French  territory  the  whole  of  the  Grand 
Lac  and  the  wonderful  ruins  of  Angkor.  In  1909  it 
was  England's  turn  again,  but,  disdaining  the  crude 
methods  of  the  French,  she  informed  the  Siamese 
Government  that  she  was  prepared  to  relinquish  her 
rights  to  maintain  her  own  courts  in  Siam,  the  Siamese 
being  expected  to  show  their  gratitude  for  this  con- 
cession to  their  national  pride  by  ceding  to  England 
the  states  of  Kelantan,  Trengganu  and  Kedah,  in  the 
Malay  Peninsula,  with  a  total  area  of  about  fifteen 
thousand  square  miles.  It  was  a  costly  transaction  for 
the  Siamese,  but  they  assented.  What  else  was  there 
for  them  to  do?  When  a  burly  and  determined  per- 
son holds  you  up  in  a  dark  alley  with  a  revolver  and 
intimates  that  if  you  will  hand  over  your  pocketbook 
he  will  refrain  from  hitting  you  over  the  head  with  a 
billy,  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  accede  with  the  best 
grace  possible  to  his  demands.  In  a  period  of  only 
sixteen  years,  therefore,  France  and  England,  by 
methods  which,  if  used  in  business,  would  lead  to  an 


244  STRANGE  TRAILS 

investigation  by  the  Grand  Jury,  succeeded  in  strip- 
ping Siam  of  about  a  third  of  her  territory.  The 
history  of  Siam  during  that  period  provides  a  striking 
illustration  of  the  methods  by  which  European  powers 
have  obtained  their  colonial  empires. 

It  was  the  Great  War  which,  by  diverting  the  atten- 
tion of  France  and  England,  probably  saved  Siam 
from  complete  dismemberment.  Now,  in  robbing  her, 
they  would  be  robbing  an  ally  and  a  friend,  for  in  July, 
1917,  Siam  declared  war  on  the  Central  Powers,  des- 
patched an  expeditionary  force  to  France,  interned 
every  enemy  alien  in  the  kingdom  and  confiscated  their 
property,  thus  ridding  France  and  England  of  the  last 
vestige  of  Teutonic  commercial  rivalry  in  southeast- 
ern Asia.  The  Siamese,  moreover,  have  had  a  na- 
tional house-cleaning  and  have  set  their  country  in 
thorough  order.  Their  national  finances  are  now  in 
admirable  condition;  they  have  accomplished  far- 
reaching  administrative  reforms;  they  are  opening  up 
their  territory  by  the  construction  of  railway  lines  in 
all  directions;  and  they  have  obtained  the  practical 
abolition  of  French  and  British  jurisdiction  over  cer- 
tain of  their  domestic  affairs,  while  a  treaty  which 
provides  that  the  United  States  shall  likewise  surren- 
der its  extra  territorial  rights  and  permit  its  citizens 
to  be  tried  in  Siamese  courts  has  recently  been  signed. 

The  future  of  Siam  should  be  of  interest  to  Ameri- 
cans if  for  no  other  reason  than  that  it  is  the  one 
remaining  independent  state  of  tropical  Asia.  Indeed, 
it  is  known  to  its  own  people  as  Muang-Thai — the 


THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN  CHERSONESE  245 

"Kingdom  of  the  Free."  Whether  it  will  remain  so 
only  the  future  can  tell.  I  should  be  more  sanguine 
about  the  continued  independence  of  the  Land  of  the 
White  Elephant,  however,  were  it  not  for  the  colonial 
records  of  its  two  nearest  neighbors,  which  heretofore, 
in  their  dealings  with  Asiatic  peoples,  have  usually 
followed 

"The  good  old  rule  .  .  .  the  simple  plan, 
That  they  should  take  who  have  the  power, 
And  they  should  keep  who  can." 


CHAPTER  XI 

TO  PNOM-PENH  BY  THE  JUNGLE  TRAIL 

INDO-CHINA  is  a  great  bay-window  bulging  from 
the  southeastern  corner  of  Asia,  its  casements  opening 
on  the  China  Sea  and  on  the  Gulf  of  Siam.  Of  all  the 
countries  of  the  Farther  East  it  is  the  most  mysterious ; 
of  them  all  it  is  the  least  known.  Larger  than  the 
State  of  Texas,  it  is  a  land  of  vast  forests  and  unex- 
plored jungles  in  which  roam  the  elephant,  the  tiger 
and  the  buffalo;  a  land  of  palaces  and  pagodas  and 
gilded  temples ;  of  sun-bronzed  pioneers  and  priests  in 
yellow  robes  and  bejeweled  dancing  girls.  Lured  by 
the  tales  I  had  heard  of  curious  places  and  strange 
peoples  to  be  seen  in  the  interior  of  the  peninsula,  I 
refused  to  content  myself  with  skirting  its  edges  on  a 
steamer.  Instead,  I  determined  to  cross  it  from  coast 
to  coast. 

I  had  looked  forward  to  covering  the  first  stage  of 
this  journey,  the  four  hundred-odd  miles  of  jungle 
which  separate  Bangkok,  in  Siam,  from  Pnom-Penh, 
the  capital  of  Cambodia,  on  an  elephant.  Everyone 
with  whom  I  had  discussed  the  matter  in  Singapore 
had  assured  me  that  this  was  perfectly  feasible.  And 
as  a  means  of  transportation  it  appealed  to  me.  It 
seemed  to  fit  into  the  picture,  as  a  wheel-chair  accords 

246 


THE  JUNGLE  TRAIL  247 

with  the  spirit  of  Atlantic  City,  as  a  caleche  is  con- 
gruous to  Quebec.  To  my  friends  at  home  I  had 
planned  to  send  pictures  of  myself  reclining  in  a  how- 
dah,  rajah-like,  as  my  ponderous  mount  rocked  and 
rolled  along  the  jungle  trails.  To  me  the  idea 
sounded  fine.  But  it  was  not  to  be.  For,  in  shaping 
my  plans,  I  had  been  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  during 
the  dry  season,  which  was  then  at  hand,  Asiatic  ele- 
phants are  seldom  worked — that  they  become  morose 
and  irritable  and  are  usually  kept  in  idleness  until  their 
docility  returns  with  the  rains.  I  was  greatly  dis- 
appointed. 

The  overland  route  thus  proving  impracticable,  so 
far  as  the  first  part  of  the  journey  was  concerned,  the 
sea  road  alone  remained.  Of  vessels  plying  between 
Bangkok  and  the  ports  of  French  Indo-China  there 
were  but  two— the  Bonite,  a  French  packet  slightly 
larger  than  a  Hudson  River  tugboat,  which  twice 
monthly  makes  the  round  trip  between  the  Siamese 
capital  and  Saigon;  and  a  Danish  tramp;  the  Chutu- 
tutch,  an  unkempt  vagrant  of  the  seas  which  wanders  at 
will  along  the  Gulf  Coast,  touching  at  those  obscure 
ports  where  cargo  or  passengers  are  likely  to  be  found. 
The  Bonite  swung  at  her  moorings  in  the  Menam,  op- 
posite my  hotel  windows,  so,  made  cautious  by  previous 
experiences  on  other  coastwise  vessels,  I  went  out  in  a 
sampan  to  make  a  preliminary  survey.  But  I  did  not 
go  aboard.  The  odors  which  assailed  me  as  I  drew 
near  caused  me  to  decide  abruptly  that  I  wished  to 
make  no  voyage  on  her.  The  Chutututch,  I  reasoned, 


248  STRANGE  TRAILS 

must  be  better;  it  certainly  could  not  be  worse.  And 
when  I  approached  her  owners  they  offered  no  ob- 
jections to  earning  a  few-score  extra  ticals  by  extend- 
ing her  itinerary  so  as  to  drop  me  at  the  tiny  Cam- 
bodian port  of  Kep.  The  next  day,  then,  saw  me  on 
the  bridge  of  the  Chutututch,  smoking  for  politeness' 
sake  one  of  the  genial  captain's  villainous  cigars,  as  we 
steamed  slowly  between  the  palm-fringed,  temple- 
dotted  banks  of  the  Menam  toward  the  Gulf. 

On  many  kinds  of  vessels  I  have  voyaged  the  Seven 
Seas.  I  once  spent  Christmas  on  a  Russian  steamer, 
jammed  to  her  guards  with  lousy  pilgrims  bound  for 
the  Holy  Land,  in  a  tempest  off  the  Syrian  coast.  On 
another  memorable  occasion  I  skirted  the  shores  of 
Crete  on  a  Greek  schooner  which  was  engaged  in  con- 
veying from  Canea  to  Candia  a  detachment  of  British 
recruits  much  the  worse  for  rum.  But  that  voyage  on 
the  Chutututch  will  linger  longest  in  my  memory. 
From  stem  to  stern  she  was  packed  with  yellow,  half- 
naked,  perspiring  humanity — Siamese,  Laos,  Burmans, 
Annamites,  Cambodians,  Malays,  Chinese — journey- 
ing, God  knows  why,  to  ports  whose  very  names  I  had 
never  before  heard.  They  lay  so  thick  beneath  the 
awnings  that  the  sailors  literally  had  to  walk  upon 
them  in  order  to  perform  their  work.  From  the  glassy 
surface  of  the  Gulf  the  heat  rose  in  waves — blasts  from 
an  opened  furnace  door.  The  flaming  ball  of  molten 
brass  that  was  the  sun  beat  down  upon  the  crowded 
decks  until  they  were  as  hot  to  the  touch  as  a  railway 
station  stove  at  white  heat.  The  odors  of  crude, 


Transportation  in  the  Siamese  jungle 

Long  files  of  elephants,  bearing  men  and  merchandise  beneath  the  hooded  howdahs,  rocking  and 
rolling  down  the  dim  and  deep-worn  jungle  trails 


THE  JUNGLE  TRAIL  249 

sugar,  copra,  tobacco,  engine  oil,  perspiration  and  fish 
frying  in  the  galley  mingled  in  a  stench  that  rose  to 
heaven.  In  the  sweat-box  which  had  been  allotted  to 
me,  called  by  courtesy  a  cabin,  a  large  gray  ship's  rat 
gnawed  industriously  at  my  suit-case  in  an  endeavor 
to  ascertain  what  it  contained;  insects  that  shall  be 
nameless  disported  themselves  upon  the  dubious- 
looking  blanket  which  formed  the  only  covering  of  the 
bed;  cockroaches  of  incredible  size  used  the  wash- 
basin as  a  public  swimming-pool. 

The  other  cabin  passengers  were  all  three  Anglo- 
Saxons — a  young  Englishman  and  an  American  mis- 
sionary and  his  wife.  These  last,  I  found,  were  con- 
voying a  flock  of  noisy  Siamese  youngsters,  pupils  at 
an  American  school  in  Bangkok,  to  a  small  bathing 
resort  at  the  mouth  of  the  Menam,  where,  it  was 
alleged,  the  mercury  had  been  known  to  drop  as  low 
as  90  on  cold  days.  Because  of  its  invigorating  cli- 
mate it  is  a  favorite  hot  weather  resort  for  the  well- 
to-do  Siamese.  Here,  in  a  bungalow  that  had  been 
placed  at  their  disposal  by  the  King,  the  missionary 
and  his  charges  proposed  to  spend  a  glorious  fortnight 
away  from  the  city's  heat.  Now  do  not  draw  a  mental 
picture  of  a  sanctimonious  person  with  a  Prince  Al- 
bert coat,  a  white  bow  tie  and  a  prominent  Adam's 
apple.  He  was  not  that  sort  of  a  missionary  at  all. 
On  the  contrary,  he  was  a  very  human,  high-spirited, 
likeable  fellow  of  the  type  that  at  home  would  be  a 
Scout  Master  or  in  France  would  have  made  good  as  a 
welfare  worker  with  the  A.  E.  F.  Once,  when  a  par- 


250  STRANGE  TRAILS 

ticularly  obstreperous  youngster  drew  an  over-draft 
on  his  stock  of  patience,  he  endorsed  his  disapproval 
with  an  extremely  vigorous  "Damn!"  I  took  to  him 
from  that  moment. 

When,  their  energy  temporarily  exhausted,  his 
charges  had  fallen  asleep  upon  the  deck  and  pande- 
monium had  given  place  to  peace,  he  told  me  some- 
thing of  his  story.  For  four  years  he  had  labored  in 
the  Vineyard  of  the  Lord  in  Chile,  but,  feeling  that  he 
"was  having  too  good  a  time,"  as  he  expressed  it,  he 
applied  to  the  Board  of  Missions  for  transfer  to  a 
more  strenuous  post.  He  obtained  what  he  asked  for, 
with  something  over  for  good  measure,  for  he  was 
ordered  to  a  post  in  the  northeastern  corner  of  Siam, 
on  the  Annam  frontier.  If  there  is  a  more  remote  or 
inaccessible  spot  on  the  map  it  would  be  hard  to  find  it. 
Here  he  and  his  wife  spent  ten  years  preaching  the 
Word  to  the  "black  bellied  Laos,"  as  the  tattooed 
savages  of  that  region  are  known.  Then  he  was 
transferred  to  Bangkok.  There  are  no  roads  in 
Siam,  so  he  and  his  wife  and  their  five  small  children 
made  the  long  journey  by  river,  in  a  native  dugout  of 
less  than  two  feet  beam,  in  which  they  traveled  and 
ate  and  slept  for  upwards  of  two  weeks. 

I  asked  him  if  he  wasn't  becoming  weaned  of  Bang- 
kok, which,  as  a  place  of  residence,  leaves  much  to  be 
desired. 

"Yes,  I've  had  about  enough  of  it,"  he  admitted. 
"I'm  anxious  to  get  away." 


THE  JUNGLE  TRAIL  251 

"Back  to  the  Big  Town?"  I  suggested.  "To  God's 
Country?" 

"Oh,  no;  not  back  to  the  States,"  he  hastened  to  as- 
sure me.  "I  haven't  finished  my  job  out  here.  I  want 
to  get  back  to  my  people  in  the  interior  again." 

Whether  you  approve  of  foreign  missions  or  not,  it 
is  impossible  to  withhold  your  respect  and  admiration 
from  such  men  as  that.  Though  at  home  they  are  too 
often  the  butts  of  ignorant  criticisms  and  cheap  witti- 
cisms, they  are  carrying  civilization,  no  less  than 
Christianity,  into  the  world's  dark  places.  They  are 
the  real  pioneers.  You  might  remember  this  the  next 
time  an  appeal  is  made  in  your  church  for  foreign 
missions. 

The  young  Englishman  was  likewise  an  outpost  of 
progress,  though  in  a  different  fashion.  For  seven 
years  he  had  worn  the  uniform  of  an  officer  in  the 
Royal  Navy.  At  the  close  of  the  war,  seeing  small 
prospect  of  promotion,  he  had  entered  the  employ  of 
a  British  company  which  held  a  vast  timber  con- 
cession in  the  teak  forests  of  northern  Siam,  far 
up,  near  the  Chinese  border.  He  was,  he  explained,  a 
"girdler,"  which  meant  that  his  duties  consisted  in 
riding  through  the  forest  area  allotted  to  him,  selecting 
and  girdling  those  trees  which,  three  years  later,  would 
be  cut  down.  To  girdle  a  tree,  as  everyone  knows,  is 
to  kill  it,  which  is  what  is  wanted,  there  being  no  mar- 
ket for  green  teak,  which  warps.  He  remained  in  the 
forest  for  four  weeks  at  a  stretch,  he  told  me,  without 
seeing  a  white  man's  face,  his  only  companions  his 


252  STRANGE  TRAILS 

coolies  and  his  Chinese  cook.  His  domain  comprised 
a  thousand  square  miles  of  forest  through  which  he 
moved  constantly  on  horseback,  followed  by  elephants 
bearing  his  camp  equipage  and  supplies.  Once  each 
month  he  spent  three  days  in  the  village  where  the  com- 
pany maintains  its  field  headquarters.  Here  he  played 
tennis  and  bridge  with  other  girdlers — young  English- 
men like  himself  who  had  come  in  from  their  respec- 
tive districts  to  make  their  monthly  reports — and  in 
gleaning  from  the  eight-weeks-old  newspapers  the 
news  of  that  great  outside  world  from  which  he  was 
a  voluntary  exile.  One  would  have  supposed  that, 
after  seven  years  spent  in  the  jovial  atmosphere  of  a 
warship's  wardroom,  his  solitary  life  in  the  great  for- 
ests would  quickly  have  become  intolerable,  and  I  ex- 
pressed myself  to  this  effect.  But  he  said  no,  that  he 
was  neither  lonely  nor  unhappy  in  his  new  life,  and 
that  his  fellow  foresters,  all  of  whom  had  seen  serv- 
ice in  the  Army,  the  Navy  or  the  Royal  Air  Force, 
were  equally  contented  with  their  lot.  I  could  under- 
stand, though.  The  wilderness  holds  no  terrors  for 
anyone  who  went  through  the  hell  of  the  Great  War. 
We  dropped  anchor  at  midnight  off  Chantaboun, 
where  a  launch  was  waiting  to  take  him  ashore.  He 
was  going  up-country,  he  told  me,  to  inspect  a  timber 
concession  recently  acquired  by  the  company  that  em- 
ployed him.  Yes,  he  would  be  the  only  white  man,  but 
he  would  not  be  lonely.  Besides,  he  would  only  be  in 
the  interior  a  couple  of  months,  he  said.  He  followed 
the  coolies  bearing  his  luggage  down  the  gangway  and 


THE  JUNGLE  TRAIL  253 

dropped  lightly  into  the  tossing  launch,  then  looked  up 
to  wave  me  a  farewell. 

"Good  luck,"  he  called  cheerily. 

"Good  luck  to  your  said  I. 

That  is  the  worst  of  this  gadding  up  and  down  the 
earth — it  is  always — "How  d'ye  do?"  and  "Good- 
by." 

Three  days  out  of  Bangkok  the  anchor  of  the 
Chutututch  rumbled  down  off  Kep,  on  the  coast  of 
Cambodia.  Kep  consists  of  a  ramshackle  wooden  pier 
that  reaches  seaward  like  a  lean  brown  finger,  an 
equally  decrepit  custom  house,  a  tin-roofed  bungalow 
which  the  French  Government  maintains  for  the  use 
of  those  fever-stricken  officials  who  need  the  tonic  of 
sea  air,  a  cluster  of  bamboo  huts  thatched  with  nipa — 
nothing  more.  You  will  not  find  the  place  on  any 
map;  it  is  too  small. 

It  is  in  the  neighborhood  of  three  hundred  kilo- 
meters from  Kep  to  Pnom-Penh,  the  capital  of  Cam- 
bodia, and  for  nearly  the  entire  distance  the  highway 
has  been  hewn  through  the  most  savage  jungle  you  can 
imagine.  There  was  only  one  motor  car  in  Kep  and 
this  I  hired  for  the  journey.  I  say  hired,  but  bought 
would  be  nearer  the  truth.  It  was  an  aged  and  de- 
crepit Renault,  held  together  with  string  and  wire,  and 
suffering  so  badly  from  asthma  and  rheumatism  that 
more  than  once  I  feared  it  would  die  on  my  hands 
before  I  reached  my  destination.  It  had  as  nurses 
two  Annamites,  who  took  unwarranted  liberties  with 
the  truth  by  describing  themselves  as  mechaniciens. 


254  STRANGE  TRAILS 

Accompanying  them  were  two  sullen-faced  Chinese. 
All  four  of  them,  I  found,  proposed  to  accompany  me 
to  Pnom-Penh.  At  this  I  protested  vigorously,  on  the 
ground  that,  as  the  lessee  of  the  machine,  I  had  the 
right  to  choose  my  traveling  companions,  but  my  ob- 
jections were  overruled  by  the  Chef  des  Douanes,  the 
only  French  functionary  in  Kep,  who  assured  me  that 
if  the  car  went  the  quartette  must  go,  too.  One  of  the 
Annamites,  he  explained,  was  the  chauffeur,  the  other 
was  the  cranker,  for  in  Indo-China  automobiles  are  not 
equipped  with  self-starters  and  the  chauffeurs  firmly 
refuse  to  crank  their  own  cars.  They  thus  "save  their 
face,"  which  is  a  very  important  consideration  in  the 
estimation  of  Orientals,  and  they  also  provide  easy 
and  pleasant  jobs  for  their  friends.  It  is  an  idea  which 
some  of  the  labor  unions  in  America  might  adopt  to 
advantage.  I  make  no  charge  for  the  suggestion. 
The  two  Chinese,  it  appeared,  were  the  joint  owners 
of  the  machine,  and  both  insisted  on  going  along  be- 
cause neither  would  trust  the  other  with  the  hire- 
money.  Thus  it  will  be  seen,  we  made  quite  a  cozy 
little  party. 

The  road  to  Pnom-Penh,  as  I  have  already  re- 
marked, leads  through  a  peculiarly  lonely  and  savage 
region.  And  it  is  very  narrow,  bordered  on  either 
side  by  walls  of  almost  impenetrable  jungle.  A  place 
better  adapted  for  a  hold-up  could  hardly  be  devised. 
And  of  the  reputations  or  antecedents  of  my  four  self- 
imposed  companions,  I  knew  nothing.  Nor  was  there 
anything  in  their  faces  to  lend  me  confidence  in  the 


THE  JUNGLE  TRAIL  255 

honesty  of  their  intentions.  As  we  were  about  to  start 
a  native  gendarme  beckoned  me  to  one  side. 

"Beaucoup  des  pirats  sur  la  route,  M'sieu,"  he 
warned  me  in  execrable  French. 

"Brigands,  you  mean?"  I  asked  him. 

"Oui,  M'sieu." 

That  was  reassuring. 

"How  about  these  men?"  I  inquired,  indicating  the 
motley  crew  who  were  to  accompany  me.  "Are  they 
to  be  trusted?" 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders  non-commitally.  It  was 
evident  that  he  did  not  hold  of  them  a  high  opinion. 

Producing  my  .45  caliber  service  automatic,  I 
slipped  a  clip  into  the  magazine  and  ostentatiously  laid 
it  beside  me  on  the  seat.  It  is  the  most  formidable 
weapoa  carried  by  any  civilized  people.  True,  the 
German  Lu'ger  is  larger.  .  .  . 

"Tell  them,"  I  said  to  the  policeman,  "that  this  gun 
will  shoot  through  twenty  millimeters  of  pine.  Tell 
them  that  they  had  better  dispose  of  their  property 
and  burn  a  few  joss-sticks  before  they  start  to  argue 
with  it.  And  tell  them  that,  no  matter  what  happens, 
the  car  is  to  keep  going." 

But  I  was  by  no  means  as  confident  as  I  sounded, 
for  the  road  was  notoriously  unsafe,  nor  did  I  put 
much  trust  in  my  companions.  I  confess  that  I  felt 
much  happier  when  that  portion  of  my  journey  was 
over. 

As  the  road  to  Pnom-Penh  is  quite  uninteresting 
— just  a  narrow  yellow  highway  chopped  through  a 


256  STRANGE  TRAILS 

dense  tangle  of  tropic  vegetation — suppose  I  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  opportunity  to  tell  you  something  of 
this  little-known  land  in  which  we  find  ourselves. 

French  Indo-China  occupies  perhaps  two-thirds  of 
that  great  bay-window-shaped  peninsula  which  pro- 
trudes from  the  southeastern  corner  of  Asia.  In  area 
it  is,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  somewhat  larger 
than  Texas;  its  population  is  about  equal  to  that  of 
New  York  and  Pennsylvania  combined.  It  consists  of 
five  states:  the  colony  of  Cochin-China,  the  protecto- 
rates of  Cambodia,  Annam  and  Tongking,  and  the 
unorganized  territory  of  Laos,  to  which  might  be 
added  the  narrow  strip  of  borderland,  known  as 
Kwang  Chau  Wan,  leased  from  China.  In  1902  the 
capital  of  French  Indo-China  was  transferred  from 
Saigon,  in  Cochin-China,  to  Hanoi,  in  Tongking. 

By  far  the  most  interesting  of  these  political  divi- 
sions is  Cambodia,  which,  for  centuries  an  independent 
kingdom,  was  forced  in  1862  to  accept  the  protection 
of  France.  An  apple-shaped  country,  about  the  size 
of  England,  with  a  few  score  miles  of  seacoast  and 
without  railway  or  regular  sea  communications,  it  lies 
tucked  away  in  the  heart  of  the  peninsula,  its  south- 
ern borders  marching  with  those  of  Cochin-China,  its 
frontier  on  the  north  co-terminous  with  that  of  Siam. 
Though  the  octogenarian  King  Sisowath  maintains  a 
gorgeous  court,  a  stable  of  elephants,  upwards  of  two- 
hundred  dancing-girls,  and  one  of  the  most  ornate 
palaces  in  Asia,  he  is  permitted  only  a  shadow  of 
power,  the  real  ruler  of  Cambodia  being  the  French 


THE  JUNGLE  TRAIL  257 

Resident-Superior,  who  governs  the  country  from  the 
great  white  Residency  on  the  banks  of  the  Mekong. 

I  know  of  no  region  of  like  size  and  so  compara- 
tively easy  of  access  (the  great  liners  of  the  Mess^a- 
geries  Maritimes  touch  at  Saigon,  whence  the  Cam- 
bodian capital  can  be  reached  by  river-steamer  in  two 
days)  which  offers  so  many  attractions  to  the  hunter 
of  big  game.  Unlike  British  East  Africa,  where,  as  a 
result  of  the  commercialization  of  sport,  the  cost  of 
going  on  safari  has  steadily  mounted  until  now  it  is  a 
form  of  recreation  to  be  afforded  only  by  war  profi- 
teers, Cambodia  remains  unexploited  and  unspoiled. 
It  is  in  many  respects  the  richest,  as  it  is  almost  the 
last,  of  the  world's  great  hunting-grounds.  It  is,  in- 
deed, a  vast  zoological  garden,  where  such  formalities 
as  hunting  licenses  are  still  unknown.  In  its  jungles 
roam  elephants,  tigers,  rhinoceroses,  leopards,  pan- 
thers, bear,  deer,  and  the  savage  jungle  buffalo, 
known  in  Malaya  as  the  seladang  and  in  Indo-China 
as  the  gaur — considered  by  many  hunters  the  most 
dangerous  of  all  big  game. 

Nailed  to  the  wall  of  the  Government  rest-house  at 
Kep  was  the  skin  of  a  leopard  which  had  been  shot 
from  the  veranda  the  day  before  my  arrival,  while 
raiding  the  pig-pen.  The  day  that  I  left  Kampot  an 
elephant  herd,  estimated  by  the  native  trackers  at  one 
hundred  and  twenty  head,  was  reported  within  seven 
miles  of  the  town.  Twice  during  the  journey  to  Pnom- 
Penh  I  saw  tracks  of  elephant  herds  on  the  road — it 
looked  as  though  a  fleet  of  whippet  tanks  had  passed. 


258  STRANGE  TRAILS 

Nevertheless,  I  should  have  put  mental  question- 
marks  after  some  of  the  big  game  stories  I  heard  while 
I  was  in  Indo-China  had  I  not  been  convinced  of  the 
credibility  of  those  who  told  them.  Only  a  few  days 
before  our  arrival  at  Saigon,  for  example,  an  Amer- 
ican engaged  in  business  in  that  city  set  out  one  morn- 
ing before  daybreak,  in  a  small  car,  for  the  paddy- 
fields,  where  there  is  excellent  bird-shooting  in  the 
early  dawn.  The  car,  which,  owing  to  the  intense 
heat,  had  no  wind-shield,  was  driven  by  the  Annamite 
chauffeur,  the  American,  a  double-barrel  loaded  with 
bird-shot  across  his  knees,  sitting  beside  him  on  the 
front  seat.  Rounding  a  turn  in  the  jungle  road  at 
thirty  miles  an  hour,  the  twin  beams  of  light  from  the 
lamps  fell  on  a  tiger,  which,  dazzled  and  bewildered 
by  the  on-coming  glare,  crouched  snarling  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  highway.  There  was  no  time  to  stop  the 
car,  and,  as  the  jungle  came  to  the  very  edge  of  the 
narrow  road,  there  was  no  way  to  avoid  the  animal, 
which,  just  as  the  car  was  upon  it,  gathered  itself  and 
sprang.  It  landed  on  the  hood  with  all  four  feet,  its 
snarling  face  so  close  to  the  men  that  they  could  feel 
its  breath.  The  American,  thrusting  the  muzzle  of 
his  weapon  into  the  furry  neck  of  the  great  cat,  let 
go  with  both  barrels,  blowing  away  the  beast's  throat 
and  jugular  vein  and  killing  it  instantly.  With  the 
aid  of  his  badly  frightened  driver,  he  bundled  the 
great  striped  carcass  into  the  tonneau  of  the  car  and 
imperturbably  continued  on  his  bird-shooting  expe- 


THE  JUNGLE  TRAIL  259 

dition.     Some  people  seem  to  have  a  monopoly  of 
luck. 

Though  Saigon  and  Pnom-Penh  do  not  possess  the 
facilities  for  equipping  shooting  expeditions  afforded 
by  Mombasa  or  Nairobi,  and  though  in  Indo-China 
there  are  no  professional  European  guides,  such  as  the 
late  Major  Cunninghame;  the  elaborate  and  costly 
outfits  customary  in  East  Africa,  with  their  mile-long 
trains  of  bearers,  are  as  unnecessary  as  they  are  un- 
known. The  arrangements  for  a  tiger  hunt  in  Indo- 
China  are  scarcely  more  elaborate  and  certainly  no 
more  expensive,  than  for  a  moose  hunt  in  Maine.  A 
dependable  native  shikari  who  knows  the  country,  a 
cook,  half-a-dozen  coolies,  a  sturdy  riding-pony,  two 
or  three  pack-animals,  a  tent  and  food,  that  is  all  you 
need.  With  such  an  outfit,  particularly  in  a  region  so 
thick  with  game  as,  say,  the  Dalat  Plateau,  in  Annam, 
the  hunter  should  get  a  shot  at  a  tiger  before  he  has 
been  forty-eight  hours  in  the  bush.  In  a  clearing  in  a 
jungle  known  to  be  frequented  by  tigers,  the  carcass 
of  a  bullock,  or,  if  that  is  unavailable,  of  a  pig,  is 
fastened  securely  to  a  stake  and  left  there  until  it  smells 
to  high  heaven.  When  its  odor  is  of  sufficient  potency 
to  reach  the  nostrils  of  the  tiger,  the  hunter  takes  up 
his  position  in  the  edge  of  the  clearing,  or  on  a  platform 
built  in  a  tree  if  he  believes  in  Safety  First.  For  inves- 
tigating the  kill  the  tiger  usually  chooses  the  dimness 
of  the  early  dawn  or  the  semi-darkness  which  precedes 
nightfall.  With  no  warning  save  a  faint  rustle  in  the 
undergrowth  a  lean  and  tawny  form  slithers  on  padded 


260  STRANGE  TRAILS 

feet  across  the  open — and  the  man  behind  the  rifle  has 
his  chance.  I  have  found,  however,  that  even  in  tiger 
lands,  tigers  are  by  no  means  as  plentiful  as  one's 
imagination  paints  them  at  home.  It  is  easy  to  be  a 
big-game  hunter  on  the  hearth-rug. 

Pnom-Penh,  the  capital  of  Cambodia,  stands  on  the 
west  bank  of  the  mighty  Mekong,  one  hundred  and 
seventy  miles  from  the  sea.  Pnom,  meaning  "moun- 
tain," refers  to  the  hill,  or  mound,  ninety  feet  high, 
in  the  heart  of  the  city;  Penh  was  the  name  of  a  cele- 
brated Cambodian  queen.  Until  twenty  years  ago 
Pnom-Penh  was  a  filthy  and  unsanitary  native  town,  its 
streets  ankle-deep  with  dust  during  the  dry  season  and 
ankle-deep  with  mud  during  the  rains.  But  with  the 
coming  of  the  French  the  flimsy,  vermin-infested 
houses  were  torn  down,  the  hog-wallows  which  served 
as  thoroughfares  were  transformed  into  broad  and 
well-paved  avenues  shaded  by  double  rows  of  handsome 
trees,  and  the  city  was  provided  with  lighting  and 
water  systems.  The  old-fashioned  open  water  sewers 
still  remain,  however,  lending  to  the  place,  a  rich,  ripe 
odor.  Pnom-Penh  possesses  a  spacious  and  well  ven- 
tilated motion-picture  house,  where  Charlie  Chaplin 
— known  to  the  French  as  "Chariot"  and  Fatty  Ar- 
buckle  convulse  the  simple  children  of  the  jungle  just 
as  they  convulse  more  sophisticated  assemblages  on 
the  other  side  of  the  globe. 

But  all  that  is  most  worth  seeing  in  Pnom-Penh  is 
cloistered  within  the  mysterious  walls  of  vivid  pink 
which  surround  the  Royal  Palace.  Here  is  the  resi- 


THE  JUNGLE  TRAIL  261 

dence  of  His  Majesty  Prea  Bat  Samdach  Prea  Siso- 
wath,  King  of  Cambodia ;  here  dwell  the  twelve  score 
dancing-girls  of  the  famous  royal  ballet  and  the  hun- 
dreds of  concubines  and  attendants  comprising  the 
royal  harem;  here  are  the  stables  of  the  royal  elephants 
and  the  sacred  zebus;  here  a  congeries  of  palaces, 
pavilions,  throne  halls,  dance  halls,  temples,  shrines, 
kiosks,  monuments,  courtyards,  and  gardens  the  like 
of  which  is  not  to  be  found  outside  the  covers  of  The 
Thousand  and  One  Nights.  It  is  an  architectural  ex- 
travaganza, a  bacchanalia  of  color  and  design,  as  fan- 
tastic and  unreal  as  the  city  of  a  dream.  The  steep- 
pitched,  curiously  shaped  roofs  are  covered  with  tiles 
of  every  color — peacock  blue,  vermilion,  turquoise, 
emerald  green,  burnt  orange ;  no  inch  of  exposed  wood- 
work has  escaped  the  carver's  cunning  chisel;  every- 
where gold  has  been  laid  on  with  a  spendthrift  hand. 
And  in  this  marvelous  setting  strut  or  stroll  figures 
that  might  have  stepped  straight  from  the  stage  of 
Sumurun — fantastically  garbed  functionaries  of  the 
Household,  shaven-headed  priests  in  yellow  robes, 
pompous  mandarins  in  sweeping  silken  garments,  be- 
jeweled  and  bepainted  dancing-girls.  It  is  not  real, 
you  feel.  It  is  too  gorgeous,  too  bizarre.  It  is  the 
work  of  stage-carpenters  and  scene-painters  and  cos- 
turners,  and  you  are  quite  certain  that  the  curtain  will 
descend  presently  and  that  you  will  have  to  put  on 
your  hat  and  go  home. 

From  the  center  of  the  great  central  court  rises  the 
famous  Silver  Pagoda.     It  takes  its  name  from  its 


262  STRANGE  TRAILS 

floor,  thirty-six  feet  wide  and  one  hundred  and  twenty 
long,  which  is  covered  with  pure  silver.  When  the 
sun's  rays  seep  through  the  interstices  of  the  carv- 
ing it  leaps  into  a  brilliancy  that  is  blinding.  On  the 
high  walls  of  the  room  are  depicted  in  startling  col- 
ors, scenes  from  the  life  of  Buddha  and  realistic 
glimpses  of  hell,  for  your  Cambodian  artist  is  at  his 
best  in  portraying  scenes  of  horror.  The  mural  deco- 
rations of  the  Silver  Pagoda  would  win  the  unquali- 
fied approval  of  an  oldtime  fire-and-brimstone 
preacher.  Rearing  itself  roofward  from  the  center  of 
the  room  is  an  enormous  pyramidal  altar,  littered  with 
a  heterogeneous  collection  of  offerings  from  the  de- 
vout. At  its  apex  is  a  so-called  Emerald  Buddha — 
probably,  like  its  fellow  in  Bangkok,  of  translucent 
jade — which  is  the  guardian  spirit  of  the  place. 
But  at  one  side  of  the  altar  stands  the  chief  trea- 
sure of  the  temple — a  great  golden  Buddha  set 
with  diamonds.  The  value  of  the  gold  alone  is  esti- 
mated at  not  far  from  three-quarters  of  a  million  dol- 
lars; at  the  value  of  the  jewels  one  can  only  guess. 
It  was  made  by  the  order  of  King  Norodom,  the 
brother  and  predecessor  of  the  present  ruler,  the  whole 
amazing  edifice,  indeed,  being  a  monument  into  which 
that  monarch  poured  his  wealth  and  ambition.  Ranged 
about  the  altar  are  glass  cases  containing  the  royal 
treasures — rubies,  sapphires,  emeralds  and  diamonds 
of  a  size  and  in  a  profusion  which  makes  it  difficult  to 
realize  that  they  are  genuine.  It  is  a  veritable  cave  of 
Al-ed-Din.  The  covers  of  these  cases  are  sealed  with 


THE  JUNGLE  TRAIL  263 

strips  of  paper  bearing  the  royal  cypher — nothing 
more.  They  have  never  been  locked  nor  guarded,  yet 
nothing  has  ever  been  stolen,  for  King  Sisowath  is  to 
his  subjects  something  more  than  a  ruler;  he  is  vene- 
rated as  the  representative  of  God  on  earth.  For  a 
Cambodian  to  steal  from  him  would  be  as  unthinkable 
a  sacrilege  as  for  a  Roman  Catholic  to  burglarize  the 
apartments  of  the  Pope.  And  should  their  religious 
scruples  show  signs  of  yielding  to  temptation,  why, 
there  are  the  paintings  on  the  walls  to  warn  them  of 
the  torments  awaiting  them  in  the  hereafter.  It 
struck  me,  however,  that  the  Silver  Pagoda  offers  a 
golden,  not  to  say  a  jeweled  opportunity  to  an  enter- 
prising American  burglar. 

On  the  south  side  of  the  courtyard  containing  the 
Silver  Pagoda  is  a  relic  far  more  precious  in  the  eyes 
of  the  natives,  however,  than  all  the  royal  treasures  put 
together — a  footprint  of  Buddha.  It  was  left,  so  the 
priests  who  guard  it  night  and  day  reverently  explain, 
by  the  founder  of  their  faith  when  he  paid  a  flying  visit 
to  Cambodia.  Over  the  footprint  has  been  erected  a 
shrine  with  a  floor  of  solid  gold.  Buddha  did  not 
do  as  well  by  Cambodia  as  by  Ceylon,  however,  for 
whereas  at  Pnom-Penh  he  left  the  imprint  of  his  foot, 
at  Kandy  he  left  a  tooth.  I  know,  for  I  have  seen  it. 

In  an  adjacent  courtyard  is  the  Throne  Hall,  a  fine 
example  of  Cambodian  architecture,  the  gorgeous 
throne  of  the  monarch  standing  on  a  dais  in  the  center 
of  a  lofty  apartment  decorated  in  gold  and  green. 
Close  by  is  the  Salle  des  Fetes,  or  Dance  Hall,  a  mod- 


264  STRANGE  TRAILS 

ern  French  structure,  where  the  royal  ballet  gives  its 
performances.  Ever  since  there  have  been  kings  in 
Cambodia  each  monarch  has  chosen  from  the  daugh- 
ters of  the  upper  classes  two  hundred  and  forty  show- 
girls and  has  had  them  trained  for  dancing.  These 
girls,  many  of  whom  are  brought  to  the  palace  by  their 
parents  when  small  children  and  offered  to  the  King, 
eventually  enter  the  monarch's  harem  as  concubines. 
Admission  to  the  royal  ballet  is  to  a  Cambodian 
maiden  what  a  position  in  the  Ziegfeld  Follies  is  to  a 
Broadway  chorus  girl.  It  is  the  blue  ribbon  of  female 
pulchritude.  Unlike  Mr.  Ziegfeld's  carefully  selected 
beauties,  however,  who  frequently  find  the  stage  a  step- 
ping-stone to  independence  and  a  limousine,  the  Cam- 
bodian show-girl,  once  she  enters  the  service  of  the 
King,  becomes  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  prisoner. 
And  Sisowath,  for  all  his  eighty-odd  years,  is  a  jealous 
master.  Never  again  can  she  stroll  with  her  lover  in 
the  fragrant  twilight  on  the  palm-fringed  banks  of  the 
Mekong.  Never  again  can  she  leave  the  precincts  of 
the  palace,  save  to  accompany  the  King.  The  bars 
behind  which  she  dwells  are  of  gold,  it  is  true,  but  they 
are  bars  just  the  same. 

When  I  broached  to  the  French  Resident-Superior, 
who  is  the  real  ruler  of  Cambodia,  the  subject  of  taking 
motion-pictures  within  the  royal  enclosure,  he  was 
anything  but  encouraging. 

"I'm  afraid  it's  quite  impossible,"  he  told  me.  "The 
King  is  at  his  summer  palace  at  Kampot,  where  he  will 
remain  for  several  weeks.  Without  his  permission 


THE  JUNGLE  TRAIL  265 

nothing  can  be  done.  Moreover,  the  royal  ballet, 
which  is  the  most  interesting  sight  in  Cambodia,  is 
never  under  any  circumstances  permitted  to  dance  dur- 
ing his  Majesty's  absence." 

"But  why  not  telegraph  the  King?"  I  suggested, 
though  with  waning  hope.  "Or  get  him  on  the  tele- 
phone. Tell  him  how  much  the  pictures  would  do  to 
acquaint  the  American  public  with  the  attractions  of 
his  country;  explain  to  him  that  they  would  bring  here 
hundreds  of  visitors  who  otherwise  would  never  know 
that  there  is  such  a  place  as  Pnom-Penh.  More  than 
that,"  I  added  diplomatically,  "they  would  undoubt- 
edly wake  up  American  capitalists  to  a  realization  of 
Cambodia's  natural  resources.  That's  what  you  par- 
ticularly want  here,  isn't  it — foreign  capital?" 

That  argument  seemed  to  impress  the  shrewd  and 
far-seeing  Frenchman. 

"Perhaps  something  can  be  done,  after  all,"  he  told 
me.  "I  will  send  for  the  Minister  of  the  Royal  House- 
hold and  ask  him  if  he  can  communicate  with  the  King. 
As  soon  as  I  learn  something  definite,  you  will  hear 
from  me." 

The  second  day  following  I  received  a  call  from  the 
chief  of  the  political  bureau. 

"Everything  has  been  arranged  as  you  desired," 
was  the  cheering  news  with  which  he  greeted  me.  The 
defile  will  take  place  in  the  grounds  of  the  palace  to- 
morrow morning.  Already  the  necessary  orders  have 
been  issued.  Thirty  elephants  with  their  state  hous- 
ings ;  eighty  ceremonial  cars  drawn  by  sacred  bullocks ; 


266  STRANGE  TRAILS 

the  royal  body-guard  in  full  uniform;  a  delegation  of 
mandarins  in  court-dress;  a  hundred  Buddhist  priests 
attached  to  the  royal  temple;  and,  moreover,  his 
Majesty  has  granted  special  permission — an  unheard- 
of  thing,  let  me  tell  you ! — for  the  royal  ballet  to  give 
a  performance  expressly  for  you  to-morrow  afternoon 
on  the  terrace  of  the  throne-hall.  It  will  be  a  marvel- 
ous spectacle." 

"Bully  1"  I  exclaimed.     "Won't  you  have  a  drink?" 

"There  is  one  thing  I  forgot  to  mention,"  the  offi- 
cial remarked  hesitatingly,  as  he  sipped  the  gin  sling 
which  is  the  favorite  drink  of  the  tropics.  "There 
will  be  a  small  charge  for  expenses — tips,  you  know, 
for  the  palace  officials." 

"Oh,  that's  all  right,"  I  replied  lightly.  "How  much 
will  the  tips  amount  to?" 

"Only  about  two  hundred  piastres,"  was  the  some- 
what startling  answer,  for,  at  the  then  current  rate 
of  exchange  a  piastre  was  worth  about  $1.50  gold. 
"The  resident  will  pay  half  of  it,  however,  as  he  be- 
lieves that  the  pictures  will  prove  of  great  value  to  the 
country." 

Yet  most  people  think  that  tipping  has  reached  its 
apogee  in  the  United  States ! 

When  we  entered  the  gate  of  the  palace  the  next 
morning,  I  felt  as  though  I  had  been  translated  to  the 
days  of  Haroun-al-Raschid,  for  the  vast  courtyard, 
flanked  on  all  sides  by  marble  buildings  with  tiled  roofs 
of  cobalt  blue,  of  emerald  green,  of  red,  of  bril- 
liant yellow,  was  literally  crowded  with  elephants,  bul- 


)§     o 


THE  JUNGLE  TRAIL  267 

locks,  horses,  chariots,  palanquins,  soldiers,  priests, 
and  officials — all  the  pomp  and  panoply  of  an  Asiatic 
court,  in  short.  Though  close  examination  revealed 
the  gold  as  gilt  and  the  jewels  as  colored  glass,  the 
general  effect  was  undeniably  gorgeous.  In  spite  of  the 
brilliance  of  the  scene,  Hawkinson  was  as  blase  as  ever. 
He  issued  orders  to  the  Minister  of  the  Household  as 
though  he  were  directing  a  Pullman  porter. 

"Have  those  elephants  come  on  in  double  file,"  he 
commanded.  "Then  follow  'em  with  the  bullock-carts 
and  the  palanquins.  I'll  shoot  the  priests  and  the  man- 
darins later." 

"But  the  priests  must  be  taken  at  once,"  the  minister 
protested.  "They  have  been  waiting  a  long  time,  and 
they  are  already  late  for  the  morning  service  in  the 
royal  temple." 

"Well,  they'll  have  to  wait  still  longer,"  was  the 
unruffled  answer.  "Tell  them  not  to  get  impatient. 
I'll  get  round  to  them  as  soon  as  I  finish  with  the  ani- 
mals. Think  what  it  will  mean  to  them  to  have  their 
pictures  shown  on  the  same  screen  with  Charlie  Chap- 
lin and  Douglas  Fairbanks  and  Mary  Pickford!  I 
know  lots  of  people  who  would  be  willing  to  wait  a 
year  for  such  a  chance." 

Just  then  there  approached  across  the  courtyard  a 
trio  of  youths  in  white  uniforms  and  gold-laced 
kepis,  their  breasts  ablaze  with  decorations.  At 
sight  of  them  the  minister  doubled  himself  in  the 
middle  like  a  jack-knife.  They  were,  it  appeared, 
some  of  the  royal  princes — sons  of  the  King. 


268  STRANGE  TRAILS 

There  ensued  a  brief  colloquy  between  the  minister 
and  the  eldest  of  the  princes,  the  conversation  evidently 
relating,  as  I  gathered  from  the  gestures,  to  the  Lovely 
Lady  and  the  Winsome  Widow,  who  at  the  moment 
were  delightedly  engaged  in  feeding  candies  to  a  baby 
elephant. 

"His  Highness  wishes  to  know,"  the  minister  inter- 
preted, "when  the  ladies  of  your  company  are  to  ap- 
pear. His  Highness  is  a  great  admirer  of  American 
actresses;  he  saw  your  most  famous  one,  Mademoi- 
selle Theda  Bara,  at  a  cinema  in  Singapore." 

It  seemed  a  thousand  pities  to  destroy  the  prince's 
delusion. 

"Tell  his  Highness,"  I  said,  "that  the  ladies  will 
not  act  in  this  picture.  They  only  play  comedy  parts." 

The  princes  received  the  news  with  open  disappoint- 
ment. If  the  Lovely  Lady  and  the  Winsome  Widow 
had  only  consented  to  appear  on  the  back  of  an  ele- 
phant, or  even  in  a  palanquin,  I  imagine  that  they 
might  have  received  a  mark  of  the  royal  favor  in 
the  form  of  a  Cambodian  decoration.  It  is  a  gor- 
geous affair  and  is  called,  with  great  appropriateness, 
the  "Order  of  a  Million  Elephants  and  Parasols." 

That  afternoon,  on  the  broad  marble  terrace  of  the 
throne-hall,  which  had  been  covered  with  a  scarlet 
carpet  for  the  occasion,  the  royal  ballet  gave  a  special 
performance  for  our  benefit.  The  dancers  were  much 
younger  than  I  had  anticipated,  ranging  in  age  from 
twelve  to  fifteen.  Dancing  has  ever  been  a  great  insti- 
tution in  Cambodia,  the  dances,  which  have  behind 


THE  JUNGLE  TRAIL  269 

them  traditions  of  two  thousand  years,  being  illus- 
trative of  incidents  in  the  poem  of  the  Ramayana  and 
adhering  faithfully  to  the  classical  examples  which 
are  depicted  on  the  walls  of  the  great  temple  at 
Angkor,  such  as  the  dancing  of  the  goddess  Apsaras, 
her  gestures,  and  her  dress.  The  costumes  worn  by 
the  dancing-girls  were  the  most  gorgeous  that  we  saw 
in  Asia :  wonderful  creations  of  cloth-of-gold  heavily 
embroidered  with  jewels.  Most  of  the  dancers  wore 
towering,  pointed  head-dresses,  similar  to  the  historic 
crowns  of  the  Cambodian  kings,  though  a  few  of 
them  wore  masks,  one  representing  the  head  of  a  fox, 
another  a  fish,  a  third  a  lion,  which  could  be  raised  or 
lowered,  like  the  visors  of  medieval  helmets.  The 
faces  of  all  of  the  dancers  were  so  heavily  coated  with 
powder  and  enamel  that  they  would  have  been 
cracked  by  a  smile.  It  was  a  performance  which 
would  have  astonished  and  delighted  the  most  blase 
audience  on  Broadway,  but  there  in  the  heart  of  Cam- 
bodia, with  the  terrace  of  a  throne-hall  for  a  stage, 
with  palaces,  temples,  and  pagodas  for  a  setting,  with 
a  blazing  tropic  sun  for  a  spot-light,  and  with  actors 
and  audience  clad  in  costumes  as  curious  and  colorful 
as  those  worn  at  the  court  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba, 
it  provided  a  spectacle  which  we  who  were  privileged 
to  see  it  will  remember  always.  What  a  pity  that 
Cap'n  Bryant  was  not  alive  so  that  I  might  sit  on  the 
steps  of  his  Mattapoisett  cottage  and  tell  him  all 
about  it. 


CHAPTER  XII 

EXILES   OF   THE   OUTLANDS 

FROM  Pnom-Penh,  the  capital  of  Cambodia,  to 
Saigon,  the  capital  of  Cochin-China,  is  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  two  hundred  miles  and  two  routes  are  open 
to  the  traveler.  The  most  comfortable  and  consider- 
ably the  cheapest  is  by  the  bi-weekly  steamer  down  the 
Mekong.  The  alternative  route,  which  is  far  more 
interesting,  consists  in  descending  the  river  to  Banam, 
a  village  some  twenty  miles  below  Pnom-Penh,  on  the 
opposite  bank  of  the  Mekong,  where,  if  a  car  has 
been  arranged  for,  it  is  possible  to  motor  across  the 
fertile  plains  of  Cochin-China  to  Saigon  in  a  single 
day.  That  was  the  way  that  we  went. 

Though  separated  only  by  the  Mekong,  that  mighty 
waterway  which,  rising  in  the  mountains  of  Tibet,  bi- 
sects the  whole  peninsula,  Cochin-China  is  as  dissimilar 
from  Cambodia  as  the  ordered  farmlands  of  Ohio  are 
from  the  Florida  Everglades.  In  Cambodia,  stretches 
of  sand  covered  with  low,  scraggy,  discouraged-looking 
scrub  alternate  with  tangled  and  impenetrable  jungles. 
It  is  a  savage,  untamed  land.  Cochin-China,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  one  great  sweep  of  plain,  green  with 
growing  rice  and  dotted  with  the  bamboo  poles  of  well- 
sweeps,  for  water  can  be  found  everywhere  at  thirty 

270 


EXILES  OF  THE  OUTLANDS         271 

to  forty  feet.  These  striking  contrasts  in  contiguous 
states  are  due  in  some  measure,  no  doubt,  to  differences 
in  their  soils  and  climates  and  to  the  industry  of  their 
inhabitants,  but  more  largely,  I  imagine,  to  the  fact 
that  while  the  Frenchman  has  been  at  work  in  Cochin- 
China  for  upwards  of  sixty  years,  Cambodia  is  still  on 
the  frontier  of  civilization. 

The  roads  which  the  French  have  built  in  Indo- 
China  deserve  a  paragraph  of  mention,  for,  barring 
the  rivers  and  the  three  short  unconnected  sections 
of  railway  on  the  East  coast  of  the  peninsula,  they  form 
the  country's  only  means  of  communication.  The  na- 
tional highways  consist  of  two  great  systems.  The 
Route  Coloniale,  which  was  the  one  I  followed,  has 
its  beginning  at  Kep,  on  the  Gulf  of  Siam,  runs  north- 
eastward through  the  jungles  of  Cambodia  to  Pnom- 
Penh,  and,  recommencing  at  Banam,  swings  southward 
across  the  Cochin-China  plain  to  Saigon.  The  Route 
Mandarine,  beginning  at  Saigon,  hugs  the  shores  of 
the  China  Sea  and,  after  traversing  twelve  hundred 
miles  of  jungle,  forest  and  mountain  land  in  Annam 
and  Tongking,  comes  to  an  end  at  Hanoi,  the  capital  of 
Indo-China.  The  entire  length  of  the  Route  Manda- 
rine may  now  be  traversed  by  auto-bus — an  excellent 
way  to  see  the  country  provided  you  are  inured  to 
fatigue,  do  not  mind  the  heat,  and  are  not  over-par- 
ticular as  to  your  fellow  passengers.  A  motor  car  is, 
of  course,  more  comfortable  and  more  expensive;  a 
small  one  can  be  rented  for  ninety  dollars  a  day. 

Nowhere  has  the  colonizing  white  man  encountered 


272  STRANGE  TRAILS 

greater  obstacles  than  those  which  have  confronted  the 
French  road-builders  in  Indo-China;  nowhere  has  Na- 
ture turned  toward  him  a  sterner  and  more  forbidding 
face.  But,  though  their  coolies  have  died  by  the  thou- 
sands from  cholera  and  fever,  though  their  laboriously 
constructed  bridges  have  been  swept  away  in  a  night  by 
rivers  swollen  from  the  torrential  rains,  though  the 
fast-growing  jungle  persistently  encroaches  on  the 
hard-won  right-of-way,  though  they  have  had  to  com- 
bat savage  beasts  and  still  more  savage  men,  they  have 
prosecuted  with  indomitable  courage  and  tenacity  the 
task  of  building  a  road  "to  Tomorrow  from  the  Land 
of  Yesterday." 

Saigon,  the  capital  of  Cochin-China  and  the  most 
important  place  in  France's  Asiatic  possessions,  is  a 
European  city  set  down  on  the  edge  of  Asia.  So  far 
as  its  appearance  goes,  it  might  be  on  the  Seine  in- 
stead of  the  Saigon.  The  original  town  was  burned 
by  the  French  during  the  fighting  by  which  they  ob- 
tained possession  of  the  place  and  they  rebuilt  it  on 
European  lines,  with  boulevards,  shops,  cafes, 
a  Hotel  de  Ville,  a  Theatre  Municipal,  a  Musee, 
a  Jardin  Botanique,  all  complete.  The  general 
plan  of  the  city,  with  its  regular  streets  and  in- 
tersecting boulevards,  has  evidently  been  modeled  on 
that  of  the  French  capital  and  the  Saigonnese  proudly 
speak  of  it  as  "the  Paris  of  the  East."  In  certain 
respects  this  is  taking  a  considerable  liberty  with  the 
truth,  but  they  are  very  lonely  and  homesick  and  one 
does  not  blame  them.  Most  of  the  streets,  which  are 


EXILES  OF  THE  OUTLANDS         273 

paved  after  a  fashion,  are  lined  with  tamarinds,  thus 
providing  the  shade  so  imperatively  necessary  where 
the  mercury  hovers  between  90  and  no,  winter  and 
summer,  day  and  night.  At  almost  every  street  inter- 
section stands  a  statue  of  some  one  who  bore  a  hand  in 
the  conquest  of  the  country,  from  the  cassocked  figure 
of  Pigneau  de  Behaine,  Bishop  of  Adran,  the  first 
French  missionary  to  Indo-China,  to  the  effigy  of  the 
dashing  Admiral  Rigault  de  Genouilly,  flanked  by 
charging  marines,  who  took  Saigon  for  France. 

The  most  characteristic  feature  of  Saigon  is  its  cafe 
life.  During  the  heat  of  the  day  the  Europeans  keep 
within  doors,  but  toward  nightfall  they  all  come  out 
and,  gathering  about  the  little  tables  which  crowd  the 
sidewalks  before  the  cafes  in  the  Boulevard  Bonnard 
and  the  Rue  Catinat,  they  gossip  and  sip  their  ab- 
sinthes and  smoke  numberless  cigarettes  and  mop  their 
florid  faces  and  argue  noisily  and  with  much  gesticula- 
tion over  the  news  in  the  Courrier  de  Saigon  or  the  six- 
weeks-old  Figaro  and  Le  Temps  which  arrive  fort- 
nightly by  the  mail-boat  from  France.  They  wear 
stiffly  starched  white  linen — though  the  jackets  are  all 
too  often  left  unfastened  at  the  neck — and  enormous 
mushroom-shaped  topees  which  come  down  almost  to 
their  shoulders  and  are  many  sizes  too  large  for  them, 
and  they  consume  vast  quantities  of  drink,  the  evening 
usually  ending  in  a  series  of  violent  altercations. 
When  the  disputants  take  to  backing  up  their  argu- 
ments with  blows  from  canes  and  bottles,  the  cafe 
proprietor  unceremoniously  bundles  them  into  pousse- 


274  STRANGE  TRAILS 

pousses,  as  rickshaws  are  called  in  Saigon,  and  sends 
them  home. 

Along  the  Rue  Catinat  in  the  evenings  saunters  a 
picturesque  and  colorful  procession — haggard,  sloven- 
ly officers  of  the  troupes  coloniales  and  of  the  Foreign 
Legion,  the  rows  of  parti-colored  ribbons  on  their 
breasts  telling  of  service  in  little  wars  m  the  world's 
forgotten  corners ;  dreary,  white-faced  Government  em- 
ployees, their  cheeks  gaunt  from  fever,  their  eyes 
bloodshot  from  heavy  drinking;  sun-bronzed,  swagger- 
ing, loud-voiced  rubber  planters  in  riding  breeches  and 
double  Terais,  down  from  their  plantations  in  the  far 
interior  for  a  periodic  spree;  women  gowned  in  the 
height  of  Paris  fashion,  but  with  too  pink  cheeks  and 
too  red  lips  and  too  ready  smiles  for  strangers,  equally 
at  home  on  the  Bund  of  Shanghai  or  the  boulevards  of 
Paris;  shaven-headed  Hindu  money-lenders  from 
British  India,  the  lengths  of  cotton  sheeting  which 
form  their  only  garments  revealing  bodies  as  hairy  and 
repulsive  as  those  of  apes;  barefooted  Annamite  tirail- 
leurs in  uniforms  of  faded  khaki,  their  great  round 
hats  of  woven  straw  tipped  with  brass  spikes  like  those 
on  German  helmets;  slender  Chinese  women,  tripping 
by  on  tiny,  thick-soled  shoes  in  pajama-like  coats  and 
trousers  of  clinging,  sleazy  silk;  naked  pousse-pousse 
coolies,  streaming  with  sweat,  graceful  as  the  bronzes 
in  a  museum;  friars  of  the  religious  orders  in  shovel- 
hats  and  linen  robes ;  sailors  of  the  fleet  and  of  the  mer- 
chant vessels  in  the  harbor,  swaggering  along  with  the 
roll  of  the  sea  ;-n  their  gait;  Armenian  peddlers  with 


EXILES  OF  THE  OUTLANDS         275 

piles  of  rugs  and  embroideries  slung  across  their  shoul- 
ders; Arabs,  Indians,  Malays,  Cambodians,  Laos, 
Siamese,  Burmese,  Chinese,  world  without  end,  Amen. 

But,  beneath  it  all,  a  paralysis  is  on  everything — the 
paralysis  of  the  excessive  administration  with  which 
the  French  have  ruined  Indo-China.  There  are  too 
many  people  in  front  of  the  cafes  and  too  few  in  the 
offices  and  shops.  There  is  too  much  drinking  and  too 
little  work.  The  officials  are  alternately  melancholy 
and  overbearing;  the  natives  cringing  and  sullen.  It 
is  not  a  wholesome  atmosphere.  Corruption,  if  not 
universal,  is  appallingly  common.  Foreigners  en- 
gaged in  business  in  Saigon  told  me  that  it  is  necessary 
to  "grease  the  palms"  of  everyone  who  holds  a  Gov- 
ernment position.  As  a  result  of  this  practise,  officials 
who  are  poor  men  when  they  arrive  in  the  colony  re- 
tire after  four  or  five  years'  service  with  comfortable 
fortunes — and  France  does  not  pay  her  public  servants 
highly  either.  And  there  are  other  vices.  The  man- 
ager of  a  great  American  corporation  doing  business 
in  Saigon  told  me  that  ninety  per  cent  of  the  city's 
European  population  are  confirmed  users  of  opium. 
And,  judging  from  their  unhealthy  pallor  and  lack- 
lustre eyes,  I  can  well  believe  it.  But  what  else  could 
you  expect  in  a  country  where  the  drug  is  sold  to 
anyone  who  has  money  to  pay  for  it;  where  it  is  one  of 
the  Government's  chief  sources  of  revenue? 

On  the  native  population  the  hand  of  the  French 
lies  heavily.  In  1916  there  was  an  attempted  jail  de- 
livery of  political  prisoners  in  Saigon,  but  the  plot  was 


276  STRANGE  TRAILS 

discovered  before  it  could  be  put  into  execution,  the 
ring-leaders  arrested,  and  thirty-eight  of  them  con- 
demned to  death.  They  were  executed  in  batches  of 
four,  kneeling,  blind-folded,  lashed  to  stakes.  The 
firing  party  consisted  of  a  platoon  of  Annamite  tirail- 
leurs. Behind  them,  with  machine  guns  trained,  was 
drawn  up  a  battalion  of  French  infantry.  The  occa- 
sion was  celebrated  in  Saigon  as  a  public  holiday,  hun- 
dreds of  Frenchmen,  accompanied  by  their  wives  and 
children,  driving  out  to  see  the  sight.  The  next  day 
picture  postcards  of  the  execution  were  hawked  about 
the  streets.  But  the  authorities  in  Paris  evidently  dis- 
approved of  the  proceeding,  for  the  governor  of  the 
colony  and  the  commander  of  the  military  forces  were 
promptly  recalled  in  disgrace.  The  terrible  object- 
lesson  doubtless  had  the  desired  effect,  for  the  natives 
cringe  like  whipped  dogs  when  a  Frenchman  speaks  to 
them.  But  there  is  that  in  their  manner  which  bodes 
ill  for  their  masters  if  a  crisis  ever  arises  in  Indo- 
China.  I  should  not  like  to  see  our  own  brown  wards, 
the  Filipinos,  look  at  Americans  with  the  murderous 
hate  with  which  the  Annamites  regard  the  French.  In 
Africa,  by  moderation  and  tolerance  and  justice, 
France  has  built  up  a  mighty  colonial  empire  whose  in- 
habitants are  as  loyal  and  contented  as  though  they 
had  been  born  under  the  Tricolor.  But  in  far-off  Indo- 
China  French  administration  seems,  even  to  as  staunch 
a  friend  of  France  as  myself,  to  be  very  far  from  an 
unqualified  success. 

During  the  ten  days  that  I  spent  in  Saigon  I  stayed 


EXILES  OF  THE  OUTLANDS         277 

at  the  Hotel  Continental.  I  shall  remember  it  as  the 
place  where  they  charged  a  dollar  and  a  half  for  a  high- 
ball and  fifty  cents  for  a  lemonade.  It  was  insufferably 
hot.  I  can  sympathize  now  with  the  recalcitrant  con- 
vict who  is  punished  by  being  sent  to  the  sweat-box. 
Battalions  of  ferocious  mosquitoes  launched  their  as- 
saults against  my  unprotected  person  with  the  per- 
sistence that  the  Germans  displayed  at  Verdun.  In 
the  next  room  the  tenor  of  the  itinerant  grand  opera 
company  that  was  giving  a  series  of  performances  at 
the  Theatre  Municipal  squabbled  unceasingly  with  his 
woman  companion.  Both  were  generally  much  the 
worse  for  drink.  One  particularly  sultry  afternoon, 
when  the  whole  world  seemed  like  the  steam  room  of 
a  Turkish  bath,  their  voices  rose  to  an  unprecedented 
pitch  of  violence.  Through  the  thin  panels  of  the 
door  came  the  sound  of  scuffling  feet.  Some  heavy 
article  of  furniture  went  over  with  a  crash.  Then 
came  the  thud  of  a  falling  body. 

"Thou  accurst  one!"  I  heard  the  tenor  groan. 
Then  "Help  me!  ...  I'm  dying!" 

"She's  done  it  now!"  I  exclaimed,  springing  from 
my  bed. 

"Are  you  stifling  with  blood?"  the  woman  hissed, 
fierce  exultation  in  her  tone. 

"Help  me!  .  .  .  I'm  dying!"  moaned  the  man. 
"And  done  to  death  by  a  woman!" 

It  was  murder — no  doubt  about  that.  Clad  only 
in  my  pajamas  though  I  was,  I  prepared  to  throw 
myself  against  the  door. 


278  STRANGE  TRAILS 

"Die,  thou  accurst  one!  Perish!"  shrieked  the 
woman. 

I  was  on  the  point  of  bursting  into  the  room  when 
I  was  arrested  by  the  sound  of  the  tenor's  voice  speak- 
ing in  normal  tones.  There  followed  a  woman's 
laugh.  I  paused  to  listen.  It  was  well  that  I  did  s_o. 
They  were  rehearsing  for  the  evening's  performance 
the  murder  scene  from  La  Toscaf 

On  another  occasion,  long  after  midnight,  I  was 
aroused  from  sleep  by  a  terrific  racket  which  suddenly 
burst  forth  in  the  streets  below.  I  heard  the  crash 
of  splintering  bottles  followed  by  the  steps  of  the 
native  gendarmes  beating  a  hasty  retreat.  Then,  from 
throats  that  spoke  my  own  tongue,  rose  the  rollicking 
words  of  a  long-familiar  chorus : 

"I  was  drunk  last  night, 
I  was  drunk  the  night  before, 
I'll  get  drunk  tomorrow  night 
If  I  never  get  drunk  any  more; 
For  when  I'm  drunk 
I'm  as  happy  as  can  be, 
For  I  am  a  member  of  the  Souse  Fam-i-lee!" 

Leaning  from  my  casement,  I  hailed  a  passing 
Frenchman. 

"Who  are  they?"  I  asked  him. 

"Les  touristes  Americains  sont  arrives,  M'sieu,"  he 
answered  dryly. 

By  the  light  of  the  street-lamps  as  he  turned  away 
I  could  see  him  shrug  his  shoulders. 

Thinking  it  over,  it  struck  me  that  I  had  been  over- 
harsh  in  my  judgment  of  the  homesick  exiles  who  in 


EXILES  OF  THE  OUTLANDS         279 

this  far  corner  of  the  earth  are  clinching  the  rivets  of 
France's  colonial  empire. 

The  next  morning  I  set  sail  from  Saigon  for  China. 
Leaving  the  mouth  of  the  river  in  our  wake,  we 
rounded  the  mighty  promontory  of  Cap  St.  Jacques 
and  headed  for  the  open  sea.  The  palm-fringed  shore 
line  of  Cochin-China  dropped  away;  the  blue  moun- 
tains of  Annam  turned  pale  and  ghostly  in  the  evening 
mists.  A  sun-scorched,  pestilential  land.  ...  I  was 
glad  to  leave  it.  But  already  I  am  longing  to  return. 
I  want  once  more  to  sit  at  a  cafe  table  beneath  the 
awnings  of  the  Rue  Catinat,  before  me  a  tall  glass 
with  ice  tinkling  in  it.  I  want  to  hear  the  pousse- 
pousse  coolies  padding  softly  by  in  the  gathering  twi- 
light. I  want  to  see  the  little  Annamite  women  in 
their  sleazy  silken  garments  and  the  boisterous,  swag- 
gering legionnaires  in  their  white  helmets.  I  want 
to  stroll  once  more  beneath  the  tamarinds  beside  the 
Mekong,  to  smell  the  odors  of  the  hot  lands,  to  hear 
again  the  throbbing  of  the  tom-toms  and  the  soft 
music  of  the  wind-blown  temple  bells.  For 

"When  you've  'card  the  East  a-callin' 
You  won't  never  'eed  naught  else." 


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M     uo°  751  677    e 


